One of the last stock certificates issued that showed a picture of the company’s founder, Frank W. Woolworth. When the corporation’s name was changed to the Venator Group, the certificates were redesigned.
The decision to obliterate the 118-year-old general merchandise division, to change the company name, and to cast a new corporate facelift, was of course, made after much deliberation. The day after Roger Farah made the announcement about the final store closings, the Woolworth Company’s “Z” ticker on the stock exchange was active; the stock rose (briefly) $2.50 per share and trading was four times the normal volume. For the time being, Wall Street was pleased, yet millions of former patrons and thousands of newly unemployed workers uttered a massive, melancholy sigh. Contrary to the fact that Frank Winfield Woolworth’s great five-and-dimes had such an impact on America’s mercantile history, neither his stores, his name, or his photograph on the company’s stock certificates would survive past the twentieth century.
One could almost picture an employee seated before a state-of-the-art computer, pressing the command buttons: Change file name: W-O-O-L-W-O-R-T-H. Refile under keyword: “dinosaur.”
From coast to coast, people bid farewell to Woolworth’s.
Preserving the Legacy
It is important to note that the familiar red letters of “Woolworth” have not completely vanished from the face of the earth. Overseas, for example, the United Kingdom has hundreds of Woolworth general merchandise stores operating at full-speed, offering the same wonderful values they have since 1909. These days, the UK’s Kingfisher Corporation operates its “Wooleys” as a totally independent entity; American Woolworth sold off its last remaining interest in F. W. Woolworth Ltd. of England back in 1982. On this side of the Atlantic, though, the glory days of “Everybody’s Store” have receded into mercantile history.
In reflecting upon the five-and-dime phenomena, one journalist summarized it well: “If Woolworth’s isn’t what made America great, it certainly made you feel great to be an American.” In the hearts and minds of millions, the memory of their hometown F. W. Woolworth Red-Front will live on. It will endure through fond memories of dime parakeets, toasted cheese sandwiches, and Lovelee hairnets. It will be remembered as the place to buy “Evening in Paris” perfume for Mom, an all-purpose “4K vegetable peeler” for the kitchen drawer, and a plastic whirlybird for Grandpa’s garden. It will certainly be remembered as the store that saved the day, when, en route to your best friend’s wedding, you realized you had no film in the camera!
Most of all, Woolworth’s stores, in the United States and Canada, will be remembered for the red-and-gold storefront sign designed by its founder, Frank Winfield Woolworth, the Father of the five-and-dime.
To understand just how this uniquely single-minded man managed to turn pocket change into millions, we must travel back 147 years, to a small farm in northern New York—and a special drygoods shop—where it all began.
PART ONE
REMEMBERING FRANK WINFIELD WOOLWORTH: THE MERCHANT PRINCE
Frank and Charles Woolworth as boys, c. 1866.
Chapter One
Early Years of the Merchant Prince
“Then, by one of those vagaries of Providence found now and then in all families, a boy appeared who seemed to be intended for something else besides farming. This boy, Frank, wanted to be a merchant.”
—New York Times, 1 Jan., 1911
Struggling Upward
The true wonder of the Woolworth success story is that it happened at all. One can only imagine the scenario in 1875, when …
A wiry young man dressed in raggedy homespun and a pair of coarse cowhide boots, walks into a flourishing dry good store in upstate New York. Smiling politely, he requests a job as a salesman. The elegantly clad shop owner, sitting like a toplofty rooster at his high wooden desk, eyes the boy and frowns deeply. The boy is not surprised by the man’s reaction. He has no business skills, has never mastered anything but the drudge work of farming, and cannot even afford most of the luxuries for sale in this fine establishment. In the far corner, the store’s employees are listening to the exchange, hiding their smirks. The female clerks dressed in neat skirts and blouses, and the salesmen in high collars and swinging timepieces, are wondering: “Who is this rube, this inexperienced hayseed, with the nerve to ask for a position here?”
Undeterred, the young man patiently waits as the shop owner ponders his fate. After all, he has big dreams to fulfill. He knows from all he has read about his hero, Napoleon Bonaparte, that the only way to succeed is to devise a strategy and stick to his guns. His determination is stronger than the sharpest of barbs. In a clear steady tone, the young man quickly lists his assets: He does not drink or smoke and he is a devout Methodist. He knows a bit about bookkeeping, and he wants, more than anything in the world, to own his own store one day.
The shop owner fingers his waxed mustachio thoughtfully. The boy before him is clearly green, but he does seem sincere. Still, times were tough and at least twenty experienced candidates would soon be clamoring for this same job.
And all in all, the boy is a sorry excuse for a potential salesman.
But the owner sees something there.
“Okay,” he barks. “The job is yours. You start Monday!”
Trying to control his elation, the young man asks: “What are you going to pay me, sir.”
“Pay you!?” The owner exclaims. “You don’t expect me do pay you, do you? Why, you should pay me for teaching you the business. Not a half penny until you prove yourself worthy. But I’ll tell you what. We won’t charge you a tuition fee.”
“How long will I work without pay, sir?”
The man smoothes his morning coat, then stares closely at the boy, a spark of challenge in his brown eyes. “Six months,” he states firmly.
The young man ponders this meager offer, and the alternative. He thinks about the way he and his brother rise, before sunrise, and work the fields until dusk. He thinks about his back, and how it aches from picking potatoes in the snow-encrusted fields. He feels sad when he realizes that he has never seen his mother in a beautiful new dress with silk ribbons in her hair, the type of which she enjoyed as a child. Or the fact his father doesn’t own a proper Prince Albert waistcoat, and works day and night. The boy knows he cannot bear a similar fate for the rest of his life, so his mind, always good with figures, quickly calculates his scanty finances, and makes a counteroffer.
“I have only enough to live for three months without pay, sir.”
“Fine,” the owner agrees, silently noting the boy’s bartering skills. “Three months it is. But there’ll be no selling involved—not at first! That’s for experienced men. You’ll have to do all the mean labor: cleaning, packing, and making deliveries. Hard, hard work!”
The deal is made.
And so is history.
This illustration by Gray Morrow depicts a young Frank Woolworth interviewing for his first job at Augsbury & Moore Drygoods in Watertown, New York.
The young man in the previous scenario was Frank Winfield Woolworth, and the place was Augsbury & Moore’s Corner Store in Watertown, New York. The shop owner was William Harvey Moore, who, along with his senior partner, Alexander Augsbury, gave Frank W. Woolworth his first real chance at a better life. It was a gesture that Frank would never forget.
Jobs were scarce in post-Civil War America, and chances were high that Frank wouldn’t get that post. A less ambitious young man would have given into his father’s wishes and toiled on the family farm until he was old and gray. Given his meager resources, Frank could have easily been discouraged by William Moore’s challenge to work three months without wages. The Woolworth story is full of such “ifs”—times when one rash decision, one dollar, one fleeting moment of uncertainty, could have shifted the course of history in a very different direction.
In March 1873, a few weeks shy of his twenty-first birthday, “Wooley” started his business career. In another twenty-two years, this erstwhi
le farmboy would be a multimillionaire. In 1913, amidst the twilight of his life, he would erect a breathtaking “Cathedral of Commerce,” to be hailed as the tallest building in the world.
Most important of all, the Napoleanic inspired empire that F. W. Woolworth dreamed about, would be his—lock, stock, and nickel. He would rule, not as an Emperor of France, but as King of the Five-and-Dime.
Ancestral Trivia: The Woolworths Meet the McBriers
Like most rags-to-riches’ stories, the F. W. Woolworth saga began thousands of miles away from his native upstate New York. The Woolworths were of old English stock, and as far back as the eleventh century, there were Worley, Wolley, and Wooley villages in England. There are varying accounts of Woolworth’s ancestry, but several sources trace the genealogical line directly back to William Worley (b. 1482).
The Woolworth Family Through the Ages
Frank Woolworth’s paternal genealogical line dates back to eleventh-century Britain. The colonial progenitors of the line were Richard Wolley (or Wooley) b. 1648, and his wife, Hannah Huggins. Some time after arriving in Massachusetts in 1678, Richard changed his name to Woolworth. The photos below show Frank and Charles Woolworth’s paternal grandparents, Jasper and Elizabeth, and the boys’ parents, John and Fanny. These photos, source unknown, probably date back to the mid-1860s.
Jasper Woolworth, 1789–1873
Elizabeth Buell Woolworth
Fanny McBrier Woolworth, c. 1831–1878
John Hubbell Woolworth, 1821–1907
Kezia and Henry Sloan McBrier
“Woolworth & McBrier” storefront, c. 1887
Frank Woolworth’s Maternal Ancestry: The McBriers
Frank Woolworth’s maternal grandparents were Henry and Kezia Sloan McBrier. Henry was of Scotch-Irish descent and immigrated from County Down, Ireland, in 1827 and settled in Pillars Point, NY. Several McBrier cousins joined the five-and-ten bandwagon, including Seymour Knox, Edwin Merton McBrier, Mason B. McBrier, and Gardner T. White. The photo right is of the “Woolworth and McBrier” store in Lockport, N.Y., which Frank shared interest in with his maternal cousins Seymour Knox and Edwin Merton McBrier.
The progenitor of the American line was Richard Wolley, who was a “Weaver for the King’s Bench.” Born in 1648, adventurous Richard left England and traveled to Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1679, after which time the name Wolley became “Woolworth.” During the 1680s, King Phillip granted Richard’s request for land in Connecticut, and the family prospered. The Woolworths gradually spread throughout New England and into parts of upper New York State, primarily settling as farmers. By 1840, descendant Jasper Woolworth and his wife, Elizabeth Buell, had acquired the Old Moody place in Rodman, which lay in Jefferson County, New York.
TIME CAPSULE MEMORY
“The Hard-working Woolworths”
My father, John, would think nothing of getting up at four in the morning and work until eight at night in the summertime at hard manual labor. Everything that came into farm labor I had experience in, and my mother would break me in into housework, too, I got both ends of the stick. —Frank W. Woolworth
John Hubbell Woolworth, the father of Frank W., was born to Jasper and Elizabeth on August 16, 1821. When he came of age, John started to manage the family farm. As John closed in on the age of thirty, the pressure was on to settle down and start his own family. Fortunately, true love was at hand. On nearby Pillar-Point, a New York peninsula extending into Lake Ontario, Canada, lived Henry and Kezia Sloan McBrier and their eight children. One of these siblings, named Fanny, caught the eye of John Woolworth. John was charmed by the blue-eyed, raven-haired beauty and quickly set to courting. Reportedly, well-to-do Henry McBrier was not pleased with the match. He had raised his daughter in fine style, as a lady. It irritated Henry that John Woolworth could not even afford to hire a servant girl to help his daughter with the housework. Overruling her family’s protests, twenty-year-old Fanny married John Woolworth on January 14, 1851. The couple moved into a modest cottage located on the Old Moody Farm, which was still owned by John’s father, Jasper.
On Tuesday, April 13, 1852, Frank Winfield Woolworth was born in this humble clapboard abode on the hill in Rodman, New York. Four years later, on August 1, 1856, Fanny bore a second son, Charles Sumner.
The sires of the future F. W. Woolworth empire had arrived.
The Farm boy with Napoleonic Dreams
From the beginning, Frank and Charles Sumner (“Sum”) were very close, and in the future, Charles would play a prominent role in his brother’s five-and-ten empire. In the meantime, the brothers were being raised as frugal, industrious, God-fearing Methodists. In fact, religion was such an integral part of Woolworths’ family life, that Frank in 1915, donated a new church and a $20,000 endowment, in the town of Great Bend, in memory of his beloved parents.
Politically, the Woolworths did their part for the Yankee Cause. Fanny was an outspoken abolitionist and had christened her son, Charles Sumner, after a renowned abolitionist senator of the same name. During the Civil War, John Woolworth helped establish the Republican party in northern New York state, and when news of General Lee’s surrender reached Great Bend, young Frank joined his parents in a rousing cheer.
The Woolworth family lived contentedly for seven years. The work days were long, and even Frank was helping in the fields by the age of four, but the family had plenty to eat, and Frank’s father was spared the burden of paying a mortgage. Then, Grandfather Jasper made an announcement that turned their life upside down.
Jasper Woolworth, at the age of seventy, was weary and ready to retire. John did not have enough money to buy his father out, and he refused to borrow from his McBrier in-laws, who were constantly belittling him. Thus, when Jasper sold his holdings in Rodman, John and his growing family were forced to regroup. In February 1859, John mortgaged a 108-acre farm in Champion. This small hamlet was just a stone’s toss from Great Bend, a scenic village situated on a sweeping curve on the Black River. Although Champion was where Frank worked the farm, it was Great Bend where the family shopped, attended church, posted mail, and learned their ABCs. Its population was a comfortable 125, and to John Woolworth, it seemed the perfect area to raise his family, in a place they could call their own.
Unfortunately much of the family’s property was rocky and dry, suitable for raising only a smattering of potato crops and enough pasture grass to keep their eight milk cows from starving. The forested areas provided a bit of lumber to sell on Market Day in Watertown, the bustling county seat eleven miles north. But in essence, they were left with a mortgage at seven percent interest and a bleak financial future. It was during this period, from 1859 to 1865, that young Frank became acutely aware of just how much he disliked farm life. He never adjusted to rising at dawn to shovel manure or pitch hay in below-freezing temperatures. In fact, he dreaded it.
Of course, not every moment of every day was spent in the fields; Frank savored those wonderful hours when he was learning. One high point of his boyhood, Frank once recalled, was the day he and Charles started lessons with Miss Emma Penniman at Great Bend’s one-room schoolhouse. Miss Penniman was a mere sixteen years old herself and had only finished eighth grade, but she encouraged Frank’s interest in history and reading.
Both Miss Penniman and Frank’s mother, Fanny, also supported his natural love of music. Frank’s most prized possession was a mail-order flute, which he practiced on steadily. He also tried learning the piano, on the old family Upright with its yellowed keys and attached pair of candleholders. There, in the tiny living room, Fanny Woolworth would lovingly teach her son the basics of music, along with her favorite Irish ditties. Consequently, the adult Frank W. Woolworth placed a grand piano or organ of exquisite tone in every mansion he owned. He even designed an elaborate system whereby the walls and stair posts of his Long Island mansion, “Winfield Hall” resounded with classical symphonies. The largest Woolworth’s stores also had top-of-the-line Uprights, with full-time piano players to help sell popular
sheet music. Frank never could carry a tune, but music remained his solace throughout his lifetime. There are several accounts of an elderly, ailing Frank locking himself in his music room at Winfield House and weeping.
Early Adventures in the North Country
Come spring, when the last snowflake had finally melted, the North Country became a beautiful and exhilarating place for young Frank and Charles Sumner Woolworth. The hills were rolling and the lakes crystal clear, providing an idyllic setting for the brothers to play during rare moments of leisure. Best of all, for Frank, this part of Jefferson County was the site of great intrigue revolving around the historic Bonaparte family.
Frank Woolworth was mesmerized by tales about Joseph Bonaparte, who was once the king of Spain, and his famous brother, General Napoleon, who ruled as emperor of France. Miss Penniman had taught Frank all about the Battle of Waterloo in 1812, explaining how Napoleon was overthrown and captured. Frank had read, over and over, about the way Joseph fled to the United States, along with the Spanish crown jewels, and how he dreamed of rescuing his brother, Napoleon, from his captors and bringing him to refuge in northern New York. Joseph even built a special hideaway in nearby Cape Vincent for his brother. Being so close to his own brother, Frank thought this gesture made Joseph Bonaparte a fine fellow indeed.
Remembering Woolworth’s Page 3