William Moore, Frank’s first employer in Watertown in 1873. Thirty years later, Frank would thank Moore by making him one of the partners of the great F. W. Woolworth Co.
Frank is Crowned the Worst Salesman in the World
Frank W. Woolworth started his mercantile career at Augsbury & Moore’s corner store on March 24, 1873. He reported for duty, as scheduled, on Monday morning, and was promptly instructed to leave and secure a proper white shirt, collar, and tie. By the time Frank returned, duly rigged up, the boss was busy, and Frank was left in the care of the head clerks, Mr. Edward Barrett and Mrs. Adelia Coons. Both of these people would eventually become trusted colleagues in the Woolworth empire, but that first day, they spent most of their free time tittering at Frank’s ineptitude. “Surely,” Frank remarked later, “they thought I was about the greenest fellow who ever came off a farm.” No one spoke to Frank. No one told him what to do. He stood around, awkward and nervous, hoping for guidance.
A farmer walked in, made a beeline for Frank, and gruffly requested a spool of number 40 thread. Thread? wondered Frank. Why, he hadn’t a clue where the thread was, nor did he realize they had special numbers!
Frank was justifiably befuddled. Back in the mid-1880s, many finer shops, including Augsbury & Moore’s, kept smaller merchandise hidden in drawers, with valuable items locked up like Fort Knox. Complicated price codes were listed on special sheets, or most likely, in the memories of the clerk. Few items were marked with price tickets. (This was one of the first problems Frank would remedy when he had his own store.) To complicate matters, there were often two prices. The savvy salesman was to quote the highest amount first. If the customer balked, then he quoted a second, rock-bottom price. In a nutshell, a novice employee like Frank had much to learn. He was particularly unprepared because Mr. Moore had made it quite clear that Frank would not be conducting any sales transactions, at least for a few months.
Meanwhile, the farmer impatiently awaited his thread.
Frank fumbled through the drawer but could not find thread number 40. “The thread is right in front of your nose, young man,” Mr. Moore snapped, pointing to the item. Frank quickly lifted out the thread and handed it over to his first customer, beaming with pride.
“How much is it?” asked the farmer, riffling through his wallet.
Once again, Frank didn’t have a clue. Back to Mr. Moore he went, seeking the answer. The thread was 8¢. The farmer handed over a ten-cent paper shinplaster. Now Frank had a new dilemma. How does one get change? Blushing furiously, Frank watched as his boss illustrated the procedure: Go to Mr. Moore’s desk, fill out a sales ticket, hand over ticket and money to the store cashier, and then get the change. Hand the change to the customer, wrap the item, and smile and say “Thank you.” Frank eventually mastered the mechanics of pricing and change, but he made a veritable mess of the sales transactions. In one instance, a customer walked in and asked for ten yards of material. As the customer (and Mr. Moore) watched aghast, Frank zealously pulled out a bolt of fabric, and promptly sent calico cascading across the floor. The owners decided that Frank Woolworth was the worst salesman they’d ever hired. Still, he was eager and polite, worthy of another chance. They again limited Frank’s duties to starting the stoves, washing windows, and delivering packages. He assumed the role of salesman only during emergencies.
Frank persevered and made it through the three-month grace period. By June, he was making $3.50 per week. Six months later he was awarded a fifty-cent raise. By that time, Mr. Moore was spending less of his time sighing at Frank’s antics, and the other clerks had become more amiable. Frank worked from seven in the morning until nine at night, waiting for the day he was allowed to do more than sweep the floors.
A New Talent, A New Hat and a New Love
Frank toiled for over a year at Augsbury & Moore’s before the next door of opportunity unexpectedly swung open. One scorching summer afternoon, William Moore ordered Frank to “gussy up” the front display. Frank viewed this as a personal challenge, and worked long into the night. He removed the musty goods, washed every inch of the wood and glass, then gathered together some bright red fabric from the stock shelves. He arranged, and rearranged, a plethora of everyday items, adding in a few strings of inexpensive “golden” paste jewelry for color. The next morning, when Mr. Moore arrived, he spotted a group of customers peering excitedly into his front window. Mr. Moore remained silent, but Frank knew that his boss was pleased. From that day on Frank was responsible for window and merchandise displays. He remained a sorry salesman, but he’d found his creative niche.
By summer 1875, Frank was working twelve hours a day and earning six dollars a week at Moore & Smith’s, the successors of Augsbury & Moore. (Sickly Alexander Augsbury had by then sold his interest to Perry Smith.) Feeling quite the gentleman of means, he acquired his first high plug hat for Sunday church and repaid his mother every cent of the twelve dollars that she’d loaned him for business school. He even procured a new violin, which he practiced with gusto, much to the dismay of his fellow boarders. One of these young men, Edgar Emerson, eventually became a Supreme Court Judge. Emerson recalls wanting to take Frank and his noisy fiddle, and toss them both out the door. Nonetheless, Frank played on, as always, to his own tune.
TIME CAPSULE MEMORY
“Frank and His Fiddle”
On Sundays, we clerks would frequently visit friends on Pillar Point, and Frank Woolworth would do his [futile] best to make music with that fiddle of his. Maybe because of that, some people who knew him in his early Watertown days never thought he’d amount to anything!
—Former Supreme Court Justice Edgar C. Emerson, c. 1920.
Mentally, he was just entering his prime, but physically, Frank was fatigued. With the carelessness of youth, he ignored the warnings of his body and concentrated on his heart: Frank W. Woolworth had met his true love.
Young Jennie Creighton of Picton, Ontario had ventured to Watertown in search of work, where her skill with a needle allowed her to make a modest living. Jennie would often leave her rooming house on Franklin Street and visit Moore & Smith’s Drygoods for sewing supplies. The moment he met her, Frank was charmed. He thought she was lovely, with her soft blond hair and sparkling blue eyes. He was touched by the tale of her father and six motherless siblings, who pined during her absence from their Canadian home, but wished their loved one well. Jennie was sympathetic and soothing, and listened attentively to Frank’s dreams of grandeur. In return, he boosted her self-confidence and made her laugh. Over the ensuing months, love blossomed.
Perhaps inspired by the prospect of making Jennie his wife, Frank made a bold career move in September of 1875. He applied for a position at Moore & Smith’s business competitor, A. Bushnell & Co. Mr. Moore told Frank that if he could get more money from Bushnell, he should take the job. (Frank admitted later that he believed Moore was relieved to see him go, considering his poor sales abilities.)
With a burst of bravado, Frank requested ten dollars per week and was stunned when Bushnell agreed. The only catch was that Frank had to leave his comfortable boardinghouse and sleep on a hard cot in the store’s basement at night. Frank and fellow clerk, seventeen-year-old Harry Moody, were handed guns and ordered to keep the burglars away. His pay raise gave Frank the confidence to propose marriage to Jennie Creighton, something he had been thinking about for months. Between his own ample income and Jennie’s sewing work, surely they could start a fine life for themselves. Jennie agreed, her heart full of hope for the future. Unfortunately, their plans were delayed.
Long work hours combined with restless nights spent in the damp basement took their toll. Frank became weaker, developing several respiratory ailments. His new position wasn’t all it had been cracked up to be, either. Mr. Bushnell soon told Frank straight out that he hadn’t proven himself worthy of ten dollars per week, and promptly cut his pay. He also suggested that Frank stop tinkering with the displays and concentrate on earning his money like a real sales clerk. T
his was the last straw. Frank collapsed in February 1876.
Frank was carried by sleigh to his parent’s farmhouse. His mother provided twenty-four-hour-care, and Jennie would visit often, assisting as able nursemaid. At one point, Frank feared he’d made such a mess of things that he would surely lose Jennie, but she remained true. The couple married in the living room of the Woolworth farm on June 11, 1876. It would be another year before Frank’s recovery was complete, but he was certainly in better spirits. The couple lived with Frank’s parents until the following spring. By then, Frank was almost twenty-five, eager to be up and about, and anxious to settle down and start a family.
Somehow, Frank secured a down payment of $300 and mortgaged a $600, four-acre farm near Great Bend. Growing potatoes and raising chickens provided a tolerable income, but it was a dreary life. Frank was in exactly the same rut he’d been in four years before. Now that he’d experienced the business world, his plight was a bitter pill to swallow. Just as Frank was about to accept his grim lot in life, he received a surprising offer.
His old bosses, William Moore and Perry Smith, wanted Frank back. They’d always appreciated the value of Frank’s display skills and were willing to pay him ten dollars a week again. The problem was, this would require Frank to be in Watertown six days a week, while Jennie remained home, maintaining the farm. Jennie was courageous, healthy, and prepared to make this sacrifice, so on June 11, 1877, Frank returned to Moore & Smith’s. Jennie rarely complained, but Frank knew it was a hard, lonely life for his bride. Thus, the couple rejoiced in the fall of 1877, when Jennie was offered a modern sewing machine in exchange for their chicken flock.
The newlyweds sublet the farm near Great Bend, and moved into one small wing of a frame house at 236 Franklin Street in Watertown. The humming of Jennie’s hand-powered sewing machine filled the house, and in her free time, she happily helped Frank at the store. As they sat around the wood-stove of their tiny home, Frank would entertain Jennie with his dreams of the beautiful mansion he would one day build for her—a mansion fit for a queen. Ironically, years later, sitting alone in the Woolworth mansion, a melancholy Jennie would long for those days in Watertown, when they were struggling but happy, and she had her beloved Frank all to herself.
Canadian-born Jennie Creighton Woolworth (1853–1924) during her later years, living in luxury in New York. Her fondest memories were of the couple’s struggling days in Watertown.
The Five-Cent Counter Causes a Stir
Back on the work front, a financial dilemma for William Moore turned out to be a dream come true for Frank Woolworth. It seemed that Moore and Smith suddenly found themselves with a large stock surplus and a handful of bills due within six months. William Moore decided he might be able to get rid of the extra stock (which he called “stickers”) by opening up an additional store in nearby Great Bend. He asked a startled Frank to manage the new shop.
Eager to prove himself in his new role as “manager,” Frank painstakingly organized the small twenty by sixty floor space in Great Bend, displaying the excess merchandise as attractively as possible. Grand opening sales on February 10, 1878, totaled a disappointing $42. Then, just five days after his less than impressive managerial debut, disaster struck the Woolworth household: Fanny McBrier Woolworth died on February 15, 1878 at age forty-seven. Frank was devastated. His mother had been his staunchest ally, the embodiment of unconditional love, and he would miss her terribly.
Frank returned to his managerial job in Great Bend and threw himself into work. Ridden with grief, he pushed on, trying his hardest to sell off the excess “stickers” and “Yankee notions,” but for various reasons, including a less-than-ideal location, the Great Bend store failed. It was closed in May, and Frank was soon back in the Watertown store. This was a terrible blow for Frank, who still had so many dreams of grandeur in his mind. To console himself, Frank kept Fanny’s words of encouragement in his mind: “Don’t worry, son,” she’d often said. “I just know that one day you’ll become a rich man.”
Another consolation was the fact that Frank would now be working with his brother, Charles. Shortly after their mother’s death, Charles had admitted that he, too, was tired of farm life and wanted a shot in the business world. Frank had used his influence at Moore & Smith to get Charles a job. (Back at the farm, a housekeeper named Elvira Austin Moulton was hired to help Frank’s father, John, get along.) Since then, Charles had shown great promise. The Woolworth boys toiled side by side, and on busy Saturday afternoons, even Jennie would pitch in, forming a happy trio.
The only fly in the ointment was the fact that business at Moore & Smith’s was slackening. The failure of the Great Bend enterprise had not helped matters. By early summer, twenty-six-year-old Frank had to accept a salary cut to $8.00 per week. The timing was horrible, because Jennie was due to give birth to their first child in mid-July. Frank was at another impasse, unsure of which way to turn. Then, he overheard a conversation which would alter his life, and that of retailing, forever.
A young man name Golding entered the store to say hello to William Moore. Golding, along with E. W. Barrett, had left Watertown several years before to start their own “99¢ Store,” an idea which had taken hold in the larger western cities.
Moore told Golding that sales were dropping.
Golding mulled this over a bit, and then asked Moore if he’d ever considered selling cut-rate goods to bring in more business. Moore shook his head. His was known as a choice establishment—why, his high-brow customers would be appalled!
As Frank Woolworth listened carefully, Golding explained to the dubious Moore that a small business in Michigan had recently boosted sales by advertising a counter of select items for the fixed price of 5¢ each. Once customers were lured in by the cheap stock, they moved toward the expensive merchandise. This “lure ’em in” device would eventually become commonplace, but back in the nineteenth century it was very much a revolutionary idea. The cut-rate notion made perfect sense to Frank, but he was not in a position to push the issue and reluctantly let the matter drop. That August, William Moore traveled to New York for his routine buying expedition and purchased one hundred dollars’ worth of inexpensive goods from Spellman Brothers Co. He was willing to give this five-cent sale a try. Being the sovereign of displays, Frank was assigned the task of making the cut-rate counter a reality.
Frank took great pains to make the counter look interesting and attractive. He lugged two wooden sewing tables out of the back room and placed them side by side in the middle of the store. Together he and his coworker, Mrs. Adelia Coons, enthusiastically festooned the table with Frank’s favorite color cloth: bright red. The goods themselves were nothing to ogle at; they included simple baby bibs, thimbles, and tin wash basins. But Frank did his best to exhibit them in such a way to encourage browsing, placing the most attractive items in the front. For a grand finale, Frank made up a sign:
From Rags to Riches: Wide angle view of Woolworth’s palatial Long Island Mansion, Winfield House, which he purchased in 1915.
“ANYTHING ON THIS COUNTER 5¢”
Then he headed home for a few hours of well-deserved sleep.
TIME CAPSULE MEMORY
In those days, Frank Woolworth was a tall, slim young man of twenty-six, rather looked up to by some of his companions, because he was making as much a ten dollars a week—and perhaps, because, as his brother says today, he could tell without hesitation the difference between dress linings and ginghams.
—From 50 Years of Woolworth, 1919
The next morning was the opening of Watertown’s County Fair. The streets outside were crowded, and from his position near the five-cent counter, Frank could hear the merry notes of the steam calliope playing at the main fairgrounds. Folklore has it that a society woman came in for a pin to repair her torn dress and upon her arrival Frank urged her over to the cut-rate table. She purchased her pin, along with several other items, and then went outside and told all her friends about the unprecedented sale at Moore &
Smith’s Drygoods.
This illustration from the F. W. Woolworth 1929 souvenir booklet, depicts Frank’s famous 5¢ table in Watertawn.
That seminal day in September 1878, the five-cent counter caused a sensation. By closing time, Frank was exhausted, but all the nickel items had vanished! William Moore sent Frank running three flights up to the Western Union telegraph office to put in an emergency rush order to Spellman Brothers. They needed a duplicate order and they needed it fast. Years later, Mrs. Coons (who would be one of F. W. Woolworth’s first female store managers) said she could still hear the thumping of Frank’s shoes pounding up the stairs to send the wire. It was worth the running, though, because on every single day of the fair, the nickel counter completely sold out. The customers spent a tidy amount on more expensive items as well, which thoroughly pleased the proprietors.
When the fair closed down and the crowds dispersed, Moore & Smith continued the five-cent counter, and for a time they even operated as a wholesale outlet for cut-rate goods, but not as their primary business. The profits on nickel goods were so minuscule that they couldn’t rely on them to pay the entire staff’s wages and operating expenses. Pragmatic William Moore was also a man of insight, however. He told Frank he believed that someone with pluck could probably make a success with a store devoted entirely to nickel goods. During that post-Civil War era, when prices were so high that a fixed-price “99¢ store” was considered a compelling bargain, surely people would respond favorably to a 5¢ shop!
Frank Woolworth wholeheartedly agreed. He’d witnessed first-hand just how much patrons enjoyed choosing their own stock from the table, an early form of self-service. He’d noticed how pleased they were that every item was the same low price, eliminating the need for haggling. They liked both the convenience and the variety. Just imagine, reasoned Frank, how even the poorest of patrons could feel rich, if they were shopping at a five-cent store.
Remembering Woolworth’s Page 5