2023  Town Wide Tag Sale

A Brief History of Tag Sales In America

In America, yard sales have multiple names.  This diversity of names reflects America’s huge geographic range and its sometimes odd cultural divides. Depending on where you live, a yard sale may be called a garage sale, a moving sale, a tag sale, an estate sale, a sidewalk sale, a stoop sale, a rummage sale, or an apartment sale among many other names.

Ironically, the name given to these sales is, in no way, indicative of where it is held.  These sales flourish in small towns, cities, suburbia and, though less often, in urban areas as sidewalk, stoop or apartment sales.

Present day yard sales have their origins in the rummage sales that first emerged in port cities, around the docks.

Derived from a nautical term that dates back to the late sixteenth century, the word rummage referred to the arranging of items such as casks in the hold of a ship.  After a ship put into port, unclaimed or damaged cargo would be hauled out of the hold of the ship and put up for sale—a rummage sale. neighbors but the practice became more standardized and more socially acceptable during this period.

 Rummage Sales

In the nineteenth century, charities began to hold sales of unwanted or discarded goods to raise money.  Often held in parks or churches, these sales would feature donated items which were sold to benefit the less fortunate.  The phrase “rummage sale” was first used in this connotation in the United States in about 1858.  During the Civil War, these types of sales were especially popular as they allowed women, who generally did not earn an income, to contribute to and raise funds for either the Union or the Confederate Army.

By the early twentieth century, this practice had expanded, as individuals now began selling personal items they no longer needed or used.  Americans had always sold or exchanged used items with their neighbors but the practice became more standardized and more socially acceptable during this period.