ITEM COST PER GROSS
Toy dustpans $4.75
Tin pepper boxes 3.75
Purses 5.25
Biscuit cutters 3.00
Flour dredges 5.25
School straps 4.50
Skimmers 2.50
Apple corers 5.75
Sad-iron stands 5.00
Fire shovels 5.50
Animal soap 5.85
Stamped-in cup 5.50
ABC Plates 2.50
Lather Brushes 5.50
Pencil charms 5.75
Police whistles 5.00
Red jewelry 5.00
Turkey red napkins .50 dozen
A list of merchandise that Frank carried in 1879. These prices are by the gross, or approximately 144 pieces. On every gross of “red jewelry” sold at a nickel a piece, he only made $2.20. No wonder he watched every penny he spent!
The next seven days were a frenzy of activity. He returned to Watertown and told Jennie the good news. Then, he arranged for the leftover stock from his Utica store to be delivered to Lancaster. He also secured an additional loan from Moore & Smith in the amount of $300 to pay the rent and order more merchandise.
Once these details were taken care of, he dashed back to Lancaster, and hired some local citizens to help him sweep the floors and organize the stock. His original Utica sign, “Woolworth’s Great Five Cent Store,” was displayed prominently a few days ahead, in order to garner curiosity. He did not invest a farthing in paid newspaper ads, believing that this was a waste of his hard-earned cash. For Woolworth, “word of mouth” and the occasional handbill were the preferred form of advertising. Naturally, this type of thinking did not ingratiate him with the local press in Lancaster, or in any other city in which he did business. Be that as it may, both Frank and Jennie were excited by the new venture. The couple found rooms on 237 West Lemon Street, and while Frank busily prepared his store, Jennie settled in with their daughter, Helena.
One of the clerks Frank had hired was fifteen-year-old Charles Hoffmeier. Seventy-one years later, in 1950, when a newly remodeled F. W. Woolworth’s opened at 21–27 North Queen Street, Charles recalled that the little pioneer crew had worked around the clock for days, racing to prepare the store. Finally, Saturday morning found a large crowd anxiously peering into the windows. Excited, Frank headed for the door, but young Charlie dashed ahead and let in the patrons. Charlie always prided himself on being the one who “officially” opened this milestone store.
TIME CAPSULE MEMORY
“A Hammer For a Nickel”
My father, the late William J. Fraser, II, bought a hammer from F. W. Woolworth personally, on the day he opened the store. A card in the window, “Nothing over 5 cents” had caught his eye. He said, “Woolworth is a nice young man, but this can’t pay.” Dad had quite a big eye opener coming! —S. H. Fraser, c. 1950, Lancaster, Pa.
That first day, Frank sold thirty percent of his stock, a total of $127.65. Reportedly, his new establishment caused a great stir in town; his only media competition being the ruckus caused over on nearby Prince Street when two infuriated horses got loose and almost killed several pedestrians. Frank was so pleased with the initial response of the Pennsylvanians to his little shop, that he dashed off a letter to his father, John, bragging about his success.
As the weeks passed, and word of mouth spread throughout the city and surrounding countryside, Frank’s business boomed. The customers were both intrigued and excited by the nickel prices and the array of goods. Unlike at other, larger stores in the area, they didn’t have to ask an often stone-faced clerk to open up a drawer and show them merchandise. At “Woolworth’s Great Five Cent Store,” they could browse to their heart’s content, randomly pick up items off the counter, and carefully scrutinize the quality. Since everything was the same low price, they didn’t have to haggle and they didn’t need to ask for credit. Frank Woolworth’s useful offerings blended in perfectly with the simple lifestyles of the native Amish and Mennonites who made up the bulk of his steady patrons. To lure them in, Frank displayed as much as he could fit into the relatively small window space. Inside the store, he arranged the jumble of goods on simple shelves and in plain woven baskets.
Animal cake-cutters, jelly-cake tins, thread, and candlesticks; sugar scoops, biscuit cutters, ABC plates, and flea soap—such was the stock of the first Queen Street store. To spruce up these rather bland utilitarian items, he festooned red bandannas on the roughhewn shelves. This red fabric was a luxury for Frank, who counted every penny as if were a dollar. He was so thrifty that he made his clerks wrap the customer’s parcels in used, local newspapers. The standard brown wrap paper of the time cost 8¢ a pound, while the newspapers could be procured for 2¢ a pound. Each week, Frank would personally trek down to the supplier and carry back the heavy load of newspapers to his store.
Within a few weeks after opening, it was already time to replenish his stock, which, of course, meant that Frank required more capital. His dilemma was that his $300 loan from Moore & Smith had been used to stock the store for the grand opening; the lion’s share of his profits had been used to pay his employees, apartment rent, food expenses, and daily necessities. He was an absolute stickler about paying back his notes, and he’d repaid William Moore’s note as soon as possible. This certainly left Frank a bit short in the billfold. Historians have sometimes questioned how Frank managed to acquire the funds to keep his store full during that lean initial year.
Days in the Amish Country
Original Lancaster store, 70 North Queen St., Lancaster, Pa.
The young boy in the photo is probably Charles Hoffmeier, who started working there at age fifteen. A mustachioed Frank stands for left.
Informal gathering of the Five-and-Ten pioneers, Brooklyn, New York, c. 1889.
A 1959 piece in the Lancaster Daily Intelligencer Journal sheds some light on this mystery. In that article, Dr. William A. Wolf said his father had been a personal friend of Woolworth. His father told Dr. Wolf that the landlady on Lemon Street, Mrs. Kendig, had advanced young Woolworth $200 when he was sorely in need of cash. Woolworth never forgot that kindly gesture, and repaid her as soon as he could. He also went one step further. Every year thereafter, until his benefactress died, she received a check for $200 on the anniversary date of the original loan.
Meanwhile, Jennie Woolworth started to help out at the store, working side by side with her husband. On most mornings, she would bring little Helena with her to Queen Street and gently set the child down behind the cash counter, nestled in a packing crate covered with soft blankets, or surrounded by simple toys. Helena would always have a stream of clerks and customers fussing over her; her every wail or coo was met with immediate gratification.
Jennie enjoyed her work at the shop; it made her feel useful and productive. Years later, when he was basking in his riches, Frank would forbid his wife to labor at any of his five and dimes, feeling this was not at all suitable for a lady of means. He also discouraged her from cooking and sewing, insisting she had servants to perform such tasks. Frank had her best interests at heart, but Jennie was left with too much time on her hands and a feeling of uselessness that no doubt contributed to the mental depression she suffered in her maturing years. She was never comfortable with a high-brow set, and felt awkward spending her time at fancy charity functions with other female members of her financial class. Once her daughters grew up, Jennie became increasingly wary of the outside world. Consequently, she was often left alone in their vast Long Island estate, save for the company of the expert nurses Frank hired to care for her.
In Lancaster, however, Jennie was in her prime. She often served up hearty Sunday dinners to Frank’s employees and friends, contentedly socialized with friends, and crafted lovely dresses for her daughter.
Everything seemed hopeful for the little Woolworth family, and Frank started dreaming bigger and better dreams.
The Woolworth Brothers Band Together
By early July 1879, Frank was doing so well
on Queen Street that he decided it was time to expand. He found a site in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and wrote to his brother, Charles, asking him to manage this new five-cent store. Charles was delighted to comply, for more than one reason. Since March, he’d been running the Morristown, New York, branch of Moore & Smith’s, which was located on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, close to the Canadian border. Like his brother, he longed to flee the limited opportunities of the North Country. He’d also had a most unsettling bout with the law; although he’d proven himself a winner in the general merchandise trade, not everyone appreciated his gifts. Charles had recently made a few enemies when he tried to drum up some Canadian business for Moore & Smith’s. He hired a boat man to row across the St. Lawrence to Brockville, and started distributing advertising flyers to everyone in town. The Brockvillian merchants did not appreciate Charles’s pushy Yankee methods, or the fact that a foreigner was trying to snare their trade. Charles and the boat man were hauled off to jail, handcuffed, and detained. “He had visions,” recalled Edwin M. McBrier, “of being branded as a lawbreaker and languishing in a Canadian jail, with the dire consequences of losing his job at Moore & Smith’s!” In the end, the magistrate let them go within a few hours, with a firm warning and an earful of fire and brimstone. But Charles’s plan ultimately worked; for as long as the store lasted, a considerable part of the business was due to the trade it had from Canada.
In the summer of 1879, Charles bid a genial farewell to William Moore and Perry Smith, and hopped on the first “iron-horse” bound for Pennsylvania. He quickly moved into a rooming house in Harrisburg, and together he and Frank prepared the store for its grand opening on July 19. They took time to send updates to their father back in Watertown, who in August 1879 married his housekeeper Elvira Moulton. No doubt the brothers were relieved that their father was being cared for, even though the memory of their beloved mother, Fanny, still caused so much pain in their minds and hearts.
The Harrisburg store brought in a respectable $84.41 the first day, with sales increasing as the weeks flew by. The Christmas season was moderately busy, but afterward, sales dropped substantially. On top of that, the landlord demanded a rent increase. The brothers decided this was too much to pay and were forced to close the little twelve by sixteen emporium in March 1880.
TIME CAPSULE MEMORY
“One of Woolworth’s First Employees Remembers …”
Candy, cosmetics, stationery? Oh dear, no, there were none of these on the counters of Frank Winfield Woolworth’s first five-and-ten-cent store. At the back of the store, on the platform of a winding staircase, Mr. Woolworth would sit at his desk, watching the clerks at their work, and guarding the sales box. After a sale was made, each clerk (and there were only three) had to walk back to Mr. Woolworth to get change. Every amount was recorded on a tablet, and in the evening after the store had closed, the accounts were determined. The store never closed when a customer remained, and many a time it was after 11:00 until the store was locked to trade.
—Mrs. Susan Kane, in October 1938, recalling her early years working at the first Lancaster store almost 60 years before
Undaunted, Frank rented yet another spot in York, Pennsylvania. Once again, Charles was installed as manager, with a one-dollar raise, bringing him to $8 per week. Opening week sales were $222.52. After that, it was all downhill. Sales for the sixth week totaled $62.99, and for the final week of operation only $3.05. Three months later the store was locked up, and the cardboard sign that had hung above the door was shipped back (along with the remaining stock) to Lancaster for safekeeping.
At that point, Frank Woolworth could have tossed in the towel, sent Charles back to his old job at Moore & Smith’s and simply reaped the profits in Lancaster for the rest of his life. But he wanted more than that: he wanted an entire chain of stores, all featuring the “Woolworth” name. He decided that to achieve this goal he had to do two things. First, he had to find a larger retail space, and second, he had to add ten-cent items to his inventory. As a test, in the summer of 1880, he introduced a dime section in the Lancaster mother store, thus establishing the first five-and-ten in the world.
The patrons were delighted when they saw the latest bargains, including dainty china cups and solid brass cookie cutters. Feeling that his luck had started to improve, Frank spent several weeks touring the Pennsylvania countryside in search of a town with a busy main street and a large space for let. He soon found it in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on 125 Penn Avenue. Charles was installed as manager.
Scranton was the biggest store to date, offering a roomy twenty by seventy-two feet of space, enough to hold an initial $625 worth of merchandise, this time with stock priced at both a nickel and a dime. Opening sales were modest—a mere $43—but the Woolworth brothers persevered. This perseverance paid off, and by year’s end they had made $9,000.
That fall, Frank Woolworth left his Lancaster store in the capable hands of his senior clerk (and his wife, Jennie) and set out in search of cut-rate bargains for the holiday season. He visited a Philadelphia import firm named Meyer & Shoenaman, which offered Frank a great deal on glass Christmas tree ornaments. Frank laughed out loud, calling the idea foolish. “Most of them would be smashed before there was even a chance to sell them!” he told the partners. The partners were persuasive, though, and Frank agreed to order a small shipment. The ornaments quickly became the hit of the season, selling out in two days. In later years, Woolworth stores all over the world featured similar ornaments (along with imported German ornaments), which are now highly collectible.
The Woolworth’s of 237 Lemon Street
The house in Lancaster where Frank, Jennie, and Helena lived while Woolworth was establishing himself in Pennsylvania. Reportedly, Frank’s landlady, kindly Mrs. Anna Kendig, advanced him a loan in time of need, something Frank never forgot. Frank and Jennie Woolworth remained at Lemon Street for four years until they relocated to Queen Street. The family remained in Lancaster until July, 1886, when they moved to 365A Quincy Street, Brooklyn, New York.
Come New Year’s Day 1881, both the stores in Lancaster and Scranton were showing great profits. Because of his personal “no credit” rule, Frank didn’t owe a dime to anyone. He had a sizable bank account, and he was proud of the fine parasol his wife carried during their Sunday strolls about town. Soon, he made his first official expansion in Lancaster, adding the corner property at 172 North Queen Street to his original space.
Brother Charles was doing just as well, his warm manner and good humor making him popular with Scranton’s customers and his boardinghouse mates. Charles liked Scranton so much that he was seriously considering making the town his permanent home. This possibility became even more likely when his brother walked in one day and made him a surprising offer: Would Charles like to be a partner, rather than just a manager? Frank would allow him to “pay” for his share through store earnings.
Twenty-five-year-old Charles was delighted with the arrangement. Like Frank, he had harsh memories of shoveling manure and milking cows during the North Country’s unrelenting ice storms. To be a “real partner” in a profitable store meant he would never have to return to such hardship.
While this was a generous gesture on Frank’s part, it is worth mentioning that Frank also had more selfish motives for extending the offer. He’d learned that his uncle, Henry Wesley McBrier, had offered Charles the chance to manage, and hold interest in, a general merchandise store in Michigan. In the past, Alban McBrier had rebuked Frank’s business ideas, and now it appeared that another McBrier uncle was trying steal away his brother. Frank was determined that this would not happen.
Consequently, a new sign reading “Woolworth Bro’s 5 & 10¢ Store” was posted outside the Scranton site in January 1881. Charles stood by his brother’s side that day and for every day until Frank died in 1919. Charles survived his brother by twenty-eight years, and to the end, he was a pivotal force in the great F. W. Woolworth Company.
The three Woolworth girls. Le
ft to right: Edna, b. 1883, Lancaster, Pa. the eldest Helena, b. 1878, Watertown, N.Y., and little Jessy May, b. 1886, Lancaster.
By now, Frank was feeling financially and emotionally flush, but he was exhausted from the long work hours. During the spring of 1881, he informed Jennie that they were going to return to Watertown for a short vacation. It was time to revel in his success, especially for the benefit of those naysayers who’d believed he would be a failure. Frank, Jennie and three-year-old Helena arrived in Watertown dressed finely in tailored clothes, surrounded by wafts of Jennie’s new expensive perfume. The prodigal Woolworth family received a grand welcome, especially from William Moore, who was proud of his protégé. While Jennie was engaged in homecoming social calls, Frank hustled about the town square of Watertown, handing out expensive cigars and sharing his dreams for the future. His success so far, he told anyone who would listen, was just the beginning. He would soon begin expanding throughout Pennsylvania and into the outlying states. This was optimistic thinking for a man who’d recently experienced dismal failures in Utica, Harrisburg, and York, but that was typical Frank Woolworth, a man who refused to accept failure.
At one point, Frank held court in the center of Moore & Smith’s store, regaling his old cronies with tales of the five-and-ten business, and vividly describing the lush, beautiful countryside of Pennsylvania. His circle of admirers included Mrs. Adelia Coons, who’d enthusiastically helped him decorate his first 5¢ counter, and Harry Moody, who had helped Frank keep the burglars away at Bushnell’s store. Fred Kirby was also on hand, working as Moore’s bookkeeper, but he was ripe for adventure. Indeed, Kirby was so fervent about leaving Jefferson County and seeking his own fortune, he was ready to hop a train to Lancaster on the spot. Since he was underage, his parents forbade it, but Woolworth took note of the boy’s ambition. Another clerk, Carson Peck, stood to the side, his intelligent eyes watching Woolworth with keen interest. Frank was not yet in the position to offer a business commitment to any of these people, but his enthusiasm for the five-and-clime business was contagious. By the turn of the century, everyone in that room would become deeply involved in the great Woolworth syndicate—and become wealthy in the process.
Remembering Woolworth’s Page 7