The aisles were jammed with boxes of prepackaged “Collegeville” Halloween costumes, including perennial favorites such as clowns, cowboys, ghosts, and fairy princesses. For those making up their own costumes, there were wigs, makeup, mustaches, rubber noses, hats, and the occasional fang. Ever conscious of the parties that accompany Halloween, Woolworth’s was ready with orange-and-black paper plates and flatware, candle centerpieces featuring ghosts and goblins, plastic serving platters in the shape of witches, and yards of wispy streamers to hang from the ceiling. During the 1980s, all manner of battery-operated Halloween goodies were introduced, adding a more high-tech and often “spooky” feel to the occasion. There were illuminated trick-or-treat bags, ghosts that hung from trees and booed when you got too close, window witches that cackled, and skeleton costumes that talked! Another big hit with children was battery-operated antenna gear. These were thin coated wires that fit around the head, like a stereo headphone. At the top, two small “lit-up” orange pumpkins dangled on the end of elasticized wires, bobbling as the child walked. One of the most popular Halloween novelties of all time were the sweet “red wax lips” that you used to put in your mouth, held in place with your teeth, and ate later. In the 1930s these sold for a nickel apiece at Woolworth’s, and the company sold millions of them over the years. They are still popular even today.
TIME CAPSULE MEMORY
“Shopping for School Supplies in Iowa”
Back in the late 1930s, farmers flocked to our Woolworth’s in Keokuk, Iowa, every Saturday afternoon, and in late August, they brought along their kids to shop for school clothes, shoes and school supplies. Small Red Chief tablets were five cents, big ones were ten cents. Good pencils were two for five cents (and you’d better not chew on them, lose them, or let anyone steal them). Ink pens with a cork finger grip were five cents and pen points were two cents. Script ink, in black, blue, green and red, was ten cents a bottle which had a little lip so you could dip your pen point and not get ink on your pen or fingers. Coloring books were five cents, and crayons cost ten cents for a box of sixteen. A 100-sheet pack of typing paper was only fifteen cents!
—Donn Hornung
Next on the seasonal agenda was Thanksgiving, more subdued but still notable. Thanksgiving was the time of year when Woolworth’s would offer paper pilgrims, decorative gourds, and Indian corn of every size, and Thanksgiving dinnerware and serving platters inlayed with turkey designs. As with every other holiday, Thanksgiving was an extremely busy time at the local five-and-dime, with long lines at cash registers and customers crammed into the aisles looking for bargains. It was somewhat disconcerting when you banged your Woolworth’s red canvas carry basket into that of a fellow patron’s in the crush, but the prices (especially during the days when everything cost a dime) made it all worthwhile.
Setting Up House: Five-and-Dime Style
Although not technically a “holiday” for the masses, the tradition of heading down to Woolworth’s to purchase brand-new household goods was a memorable part of many people’s lives. For the entire span of its 118-year history, and throughout every season of the year, F. W. Woolworth’s catered to working-class newlyweds setting up house. Company catalogs made it crystal clear that the business of brides and grooms were welcome. “F. W. Woolworth’s,” its 1939 booklet boasted, “is where you can find, under one roof, the thousand and one things that make a house into a home!” An additional bonus was “the marvelous host of kitchen utensils in shining array that would make a homebody of a girl who never boiled an egg.”
F. W. Woolworth’s “Back to School” Sales Through the Decades
Excerpt from 1919 catalogue lists general merchandise for children, as well as school supplies such as paper and “mucilage.”
A wide assortment of back-to-school items were available to customers in 1939.
Countless newlyweds returned from their honeymoons, pocketed what was left of their wedding gift money, and headed to Woolworth’s for a post-marital shopping spree. For those just starting out as a couple, one of the most popular sections of the store was the “gadget” department. Here the young, thrifty housekeeper could find corn holders, egg poachers, potato mashers, and metal vegetable peelers that never seemed to wear out. Few could resist the “Faucet Queen,” a device which slipped over the faucet and, with a light push of its lever, changed the direct flow of water into a fine spray. Nearby, one could find cake pans, pudding pans, and muffin pans … funnels, hand towels, scrub brushes, and steel wool … cedar oil polish and mixing bowls. In the early 1950s, there was a big push on Woolworth’s “Plastic Ensembles,” which were arguably the most practical yet gaudy kitchen accessories ever offered by the company. Plastic Ensembles were vinyl “work-saving” plastic covers, which were available in several patterns, including “Fruit Festival.” For a mere dollar, you could buy a five-piece cottage window set that included a sash curtain in a red, green, yellow, and orange fruit pattern. For a few dollars more, you could add an entire line of matching appliance covers, tablecloths, even bowl cover sets. At the time, these Plastic Ensembles sold like hotcakes, especially given the promise that they “wipe clean in a jiffy.” Nowadays, they frequently show up at garage sales, and there is a branch of the collector’s market that specializes in these and other 1950s five-and-dime items.
A busy Woolco store in Gretna, Louisiana, c. 1979.
Tableware was always on a newlyweds’ list, and Woolworth’s exclusive Harlequin brand was often at the top. Harlequin dinnerware came in a variety of colors, including Kraft Blue and Red Majestic. They were priced for the budget-conscious consumer and were always laid out in lovely displays. What customers didn’t realize was what the Woolworth’s stockboys went through to get that dinnerware to the consumer. The dinnerware (each piece loose) would arrive at the store in giant cartons filled with straw so by the time they finished unpacking, the workers were covered with dust, straw, and dirt, and itched and sneezed for three days! Harlequin dinnerware is also highly collectible in today’s retro market.
Another important part of setting up house was cultivation of the new garden. Whether you had a small window garden in New York City, or an expansive landscape in the suburbs, Woolworth’s “Gardening Department” had everything you needed to make your garden one of the prettiest on the block. Come springtime, Woolworth’s stores would feature piles of seeds, garden tools, and watering cans, right along with its Easter merchandise. During the late 1970s, some of the larger Woolworth’s and Woolco stores offered entire landscape and gardening substores; these were especially popular in the United Kingdom.
After the newlyweds settled in to their first apartment or home, their social life usually expanded rather quickly, and Woolworth’s was at the ready to equip the young couple for all their social needs. The local five-and-ten was the perfect and most convenient place to stock up on supplies for church bake sales, surprise birthday parties, and bon voyage celebrations. A typical Saturday night in the late 1950s and early 1960s would find couples meeting for Bridge card parties, and to make these events more enjoyable, Woolworth’s offered an entire line of Bridge accessories. There were playing cards, special bridge pencils, and card table covers, along with individual match boxes and ash trays which were placed in table corners. Woolworth’s also popularized the now familiar “Bridge Mix,” its own special mix of candies and salted nuts.
More often than not, within a year or two, a baby was on the way, and the mother-to-be headed downtown to Woolworth’s to purchase baby clothes and blankets in blue, pink, and neutral yellow. If her friends and family threw a baby shower for the mother-to-be, it was a good chance they purchased their party favors and gifts there as well.
In their company booklet, 50 Years of Woolworth: 1879–1929, the F.W. Woolworth Co. bragged that they could supply all of the babys under five years of age in the United States and Canada with most of the things they needed. At that time, they were buying merchandise for over twelve million babies a year!
Mementos of Holidays Past
Many former customers still have some of their F. W. Woolworth holiday mementos tucked away in shoe boxes in their closets, as special reminders of days gone by. It might be the colorful tin that once held holiday cookies, or the set of porcelain salt and pepper shakers purchased to spruce up the Easter dinner table. Others have kept the pair of ten-cent button earrings their child presented to them on Mother’s Day, or the plastic orange pumpkin used the very first time out on a night of Halloween trick-or-treating.
The local F. W. Woolworth’s, along with other five-and-dime stores, created memories, amusing or sentimental, that would last a lifetime. Many still cling to their memories as relics of a simpler, happier time.
TIME CAPSULE MEMORY
“A Gift Given with Love”
I give Woolworth’s credit for making one Christmas very special. Mrs. Kalioma, a lady who had no children and could afford expensive gifts, asked me which doll I thought the prettiest. Of course, my choice was a beauty with ‘real’ hair that could be combed and big blue eyes which opened and closed. Santa didn’t leave it under the tree, but when the Kalioma’s came for dinner there was a long box for me … and inside it, my doll! Woolworth’s played an important role in my life, not only at Christmas but throughout the year. I grew up in a small town 22 miles from a Woolworth’s. Once a month the family journeyed to Ironwood, MI to shop and while my parents shopped for groceries, my sister and I explored Woolworth’s. I will never forget those times.
—Hope Abadie
Page from Woolworth’s catalogue, “Fashions for Baby,” 1956.
Chapter Ten
The Spectacle of Woolworth’s
“Great things are far from over. It was not too long ago,
A boy in the country thought that there was more he ought to know,
So he put the farm behind him, Said good-bye to cow and hen,
Then started a great new wonder, Mr. Woolworth’s Five and Ten.
What a Notion, what a dream, what an idea, the perfect scheme!”
—Theme song from: “Mr. Woolworth Had a Notion.” 1965
Drama and Artistry: Five-and-Dime Style
Frank Winfield Woolworth was the first of the chain store magnates to actively consider both dramatic and sensory impact as vital components of successful ware merchandising. He viewed his business as a stage performance; the product displays his scenery, the employees his actors, the customers his audience. Over the decades, this drama moved out of the confines of the actual stores and into the wider realm of popular culture. The vision of F. W. Woolworth’s Red-Fronts, both in the United States and abroad, became so familiar, and the experience of shopping there so ingrained in millions of people’s lives, that “Woolworth’s” evolved from simple dimestore to household name. Consequently, the Red-Fronts quickly found their way into countless poems, sonnets, parodies, editorial cartoons, and Nickelodeon reels. As you will soon learn, the chief himself once appeared in a silent “flicker”—much to his delight. After Frank died in 1919, the legend of his empire, and that of the five-and-dime concept he had spawned, eventually infiltrated Hollywood, Broadway, Tin Pan Alley, and the air waves. References to Woolworth’s popped up frequently in published stories and best-sellers; British author, Barbara Comyns even named one of her books, Our Spoons Came from Woolworths. The Donahue Sales Corporation, one of Woolworth’s oldest suppliers, produced a foot-tapping New York musical review in honor of Mr. Woolworth. It eventually reached the point where the mere mention of a one simple word, “Woolworth,” in a song lyric or sentence, instantly evoked a nostalgic response or mental image.
Beginning on New Year’s Day 1952, the manager of the F. W. Woolworth in Pasadena, California, and the company at large, sponsored the Tournament of Roses Parade. It was broadcast for years over NBC-TV network. In 1954, it was hailed as the first event ever broadcast in full color.
Even Frank Woolworth himself, with his penchant for thinking big, could not have imagined just how far the stores bearing his name would become imbedded into the popular culture. And since “talking pictures” weren’t even established yet, he didn’t have a clue that eight years after his passing, a musical sound film would be produced bearing his store’s name. While some of the fame occurred by accident, Frank Woolworth, from the beginning, did have a semblance of a master plan for celebrity. He set it in motion in 1878 when he saw the frenzy created by his five-cent bargain table in Moore & Smith’s Watertown, New York, store.
From the get-go, Frank strived to make shopping at Woolworth’s a memorable and newsworthy event. He transformed the working class’s traditionally hum-drum shopping expedition into an enjoyable affair. He did so by paying attention to both the aesthetics of his stores and the sensibilities of his customers. With his first few shops in Utica and Lancaster, the priority was simply to buy as many goods as he could afford with his limited capital, get these items out on the counters in record time, and start making a profit. But the moment he had a few thousand dollars to spare, this Barnum of the Dimestores started to focus on artistry, drama and, whenever possible, spectacle.
Opening-Day Galas and Special Events
Frank Woolworth was a great aficionado of symphony, opera, theater, and art, and these were the very resources he called upon when weaving aesthetics into his mercantile opus. This was particularly true in the late 1880s, when he initiated the practice of grand opening galas. Such events often featured popular singers or full-fledged orchestras, surrounded by “props” such as swaying palms and aromatic flowers. In later years, he added his Gilded Age “Refreshment Rooms” to the mix. And so, on opening day (and every day) his financially strained patrons had the rare opportunity to dine at marble-topped tables with linen napkins and attentive waiters, while they gazed appreciatively at the surrounding statuary, oil paintings, and wall murals. Best of all, his customers could enjoy such luxuries for a mere pittance. The prices on the food menu were the same as those in the stores—nothing was over ten cents. The masses thronged to Frank’s opening day sales, and being so impressed with the incomparable bargains and the spectacle of the premier, they became steady, life-long customers of F. W. Woolworth’s, just as Frank had hoped.
This impression of heightened drama was not limited to store premiers. After the hoopla died down, the sensory experience continued. There was always the aroma of popcorn to greet you at the door, the visual lure of chocolates piled high on sparkling glass trays, and the comfort of being served by uniformed clerks and counter girls, who were ready to please. Many of Woolworth’s turn-of-the-century five-and-dimes even featured talented piano players and singers, thus providing a bit of melodious accompaniment to the background sounds of jingling cash register machines.
Despite all this pomp, Frank Woolworth was not a pretentious man when it came to his chosen profession. He knew full well that he was selling tin shovels for a nickel, not diamond bracelets for thousands of dollars. But he did not believe that cut-rate prices automatically translated into cut-rate treatment or sloppy displays. His merchandise was always arranged in a way as to appear aesthetically pleasing to his clientele. He eventually replaced his stores’ original humble pine shelves with mahogany-veneered counters, some with lower glass cabinets sporting brass fittings. Attractive overhead Casablanca fans cooled the bargain-hunting masses, and the silver metal cash registers were scrubbed until they gleamed in the gaslight. This is not to imply that the utilitarian Woolworth’s could be considered or described as “classically beautiful,” but the old five-and-dimes did have a certain genteel charm. Even after World War I, when all of F. W. Woolworth’s Refreshment Rooms were outfitted with new Formica lunch counters, and the quaint wooden counters (and individual counter girls) swapped for modern metal and plastic “self-service” shelving, the stores retained a high level of artistry.
Thousands of Woolworth’s managers, straight through to the end of the Woolworth era, dreamed-up sensational promotional gimmicks that lured in record-breaking crowds. Back in the late 1950s, for i
nstance, the ambitious manager of the Menlo Park, New Jersey, store, arranged a two-week sale to sell hundreds of pieces of original artwork, some of which were painted by the Old Masters. This certainly wasn’t the routine Woolworth’s sales event in Edison, a store which usually did its stock in trade in school supplies and kitchen gadgets. Some of the surrounding specialty store owners even criticized the Woolworth’s manager for being pretentious and stepping out of his five-and-dime station. He plunged ahead anyway and met with great success. Along with original paintings and expensive lithographs, there were moderately-priced pieces of art to appeal to those with less to spend. The works of artists including Renoir, Van Gogh, and Cezanne made their Woolworth’s debut during those weeks, luring in three thousand visitors a day!
Front page of the Summer/Fall 1994 issue of the company’s newsletter, the Woolworth News, illustrates that Frank Woolworth’s sense of fanfare persevered straight into the 1990s. This cover featured “The Great Return” gala of store #1725 in Harlem, New York.
As late as 1994, the atmosphere was festive and hopeful at many regional F. W. Woolworth’s stores. In July of that year, “A Great Reception” was held in honor on the grand opening of store #1725 in Harlem, New York City. A ribbon-cutting ceremony, featuring a guest appearance by Seattle Supersonics basketball player, Gus Williams, and free refreshments, was just the tip of the promotional iceberg.
A large parade was staged on Broadway, led by the Jackie Robinson Drum and Bugle Corps, with hundreds of community children sporting “Great Return” tee-shirts leading the way. According to the Woolworth News, opening-day sales at the store were overwhelming and continued to exceed expectations. Other 1990s events, ranging from promotional to charitable, included the successful “March of Dimes Walk for Healthy Babies,” which involved employees of the Hilo, Hawaii, store, as well as the many health clinics and literacy programs sponsored in inner cities. “Customer appreciation” days were another popular form of creative community service. In Caro, Michigan, the local manager organized a giant sidewalk sale with Woolworth’s employees dressed up as circus performers and free refreshments for one and all. Certainly one of the most unusual gimmicks was the display of a 100-pound live catfish in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, which acted as a “lure” for special sporting equipment sales, and raffle drawings for fishing poles, tackle boxes and fish food. All these events were testimony to the spirit of hundreds of Woolworth’s employees and managers, who were by then witnessing the first devastating wave of Red-Front closings across America. It also indicates that there were stores making healthy profits, right up until the fateful day in 1997 when all the remaining F. W. Woolworth variety stores were closed down.
Remembering Woolworth’s Page 24