Remembering Woolworth’s

by Karen Plunkett-Powell

  The cash continued to roll in during the 1920s, straight through to World War II in the 1940s. Hollywood was cranking out musical after musical, and every time a new song reached the Hit Parade, F. W. Woolworth’s was ready to oblige. For the price of pocket change, Woolworth’s customers could now purchase the sheet music for record-breaking hits such as the Andrew Sister’s “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” and if they weren’t accomplished “ticklers of the ivories,” well then, they could simply buy the phonograph album of the same name to play on their home Victrola.

  I Found a Million-Dollar Baby in a Five and Ten Cent Store

  Once in a while, the very music that Woolworth’s was selling, included a reference to its own five-and-dime establishments. “I Found A Million Dollar Baby in a Five and Ten Cent Store” was one example of this. This 1931 hit, with lyrics by Mort Dixon and Billy Rose, and music by Harry Warren, was first introduced to listeners in a review called Crazy Quilt featuring Fanny Brice. Four years later, it was interpreted for the musical Million Dollar Baby, starring Arline Judge and Jimmy Fay. The term “five-and-dime” could have meant any establishment of its kind, but to this day, most people associate it with F. W. Woolworth’s. “Million Dollar Baby” was also one of several phrases used by the press to describe Woolworth’s granddaughter (and heir) Barbara Hutton.

  Another favorite of the time was a 1928 song called “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby,” with lyrics by Dorothy Field, and music by Jimmy McHugh. The Woolworth Red-Fronts were immortalized in one line: “Gee, I’d like to see you looking swell, baby, Diamond bracelets Woolworth’s doesn’t sell, baby.” This tune was recorded many times over, by artists such as Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. It was also featured in a 1938 screwball comedy called Bringing up Baby, starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. In that now-classic film, the only thing that a wayward leopard named Baby would respond to was that song. (Cary Grant, by the way, was the third husband of Frank Woolworth’s granddaughter, Barbara Hutton.) A more recent hit which mentions Woolworth’s is Nancy Griffith’s country song, “Love at the Five and Dime,” the tale of Eddie, “a sweet romancer” and his beloved “who made the Woolworth counters shine.” There have been hundreds of such lyric references through the decades, music being yet another example of how F. W. Woolworth’s has found its way into the popular culture.

  The celebrity crazes of the 1940s and 1950s also spawned a few interesting five-and-dime collectibles. Several Woolworth’s stores, for example, offered record album brushes decorated with pictures of musical artists such as the Andrew Sisters and Guy Lombardo. These were usually given away free as store promotions during grand opening or reopening sales. Some of these record brushes now sell for up to $100 a piece.

  Meanwhile, back in the larger Woolworth’s stores, hired piano players and singers (who sometimes doubled as clerks) continued to bang out melodies to boost sheet music and phonograph celebrity record sales. These performers weren’t paid much money, but they did receive a type of Main Street acclaim. Once in a while, their stint as dimestore performers led to bigger and better things. Scenarios as depicted in the film A Girl From Woolworth’s (1929), whereby pretty Daisy starts out as a singer/clerk at Woolworth’s and is offered a shot at the big-time nightclub circuit, were not that unusual.

  One of the legendary crooners of our time, Mel Torme, can trace his roots back to F. W. Woolworth’s in Chicago. Both of his parents loved show business, and for a time in the 1930s, his mother worked as a pianist in Woolworth’s, playing and singing her heart out for the five-and-dime customers. According to celebrity folklore, Mel Torme was learning these songs while his mother played; she sometimes brought him into Woolworth’s to perform a solo. Before the age of five, Torme was being acknowledged as a child prodigy, and by age sixteen one of his original music compositions was selling in record numbers right in Woolworth’s, where it all began. The song was “Lament for Love,” performed by Harry James beginning in 1941.

  Of course, not every musician or singer made it big as a result of a stint at Woolworth’s, but for many customers, the memory of music resounding through the store as they shopped for dimestore bargains was a special memory indeed.

  For Your Listening Pleasure: The Woolworth Radio Hour

  During the late 1940s, the F. W. Woolworth Company made a leap into the national advertising circuit by sponsoring a network radio show called “The Woolworth Hour.” Until that time, the company had rarely indulged in any type of paid advertisement, save an occasional co-op ad in a magazine (funded in conjunction with one of the company’s product suppliers), or the announcement of a grand-opening sale in a local newspaper. The ever-increasing popularity of radio, with its rapt audience and potential customers, managed to convince company executives to break the “no paid advertising” tradition.

  Details about “The Woolworth Hour” are sparse, but we know it was broadcast live on Sundays (after the ball game) in New York City, St. Louis and several other American cities. It was a music program which featured the melodies of popular bands of the time, such as Percy Faith and his Orchestra. Naturally, in between musical selections listeners would hear all about the latest and greatest Woolworth’s bargains. “The Woolworth Hour” only lasted for a few years, no doubt terminated as television began to capture the attention of the public.

  On-Stage Now! Mr. Woolworth Had a Notion

  Along with the film and music references that have surfaced over the decades, there are several notable stage events to add to the Woolworth’s medley. After the age of big Hollywood musicals started to fade, along with the Big Band era and radio, America started to turn its attention back to live theater. In the 1960s, New York City bounced back as the supreme showcase for Broadway and Off-Broadway shows of all kinds, as well as for specialized musical reviews. One particularly elaborate stage event associated directly with Frank Woolworth, was a musical review produced by the Donahue Sales Corporation in 1965.

  Mr. Woolworth Had a Notion, was a one-night only gala of thematic playlets, songs and dances, held at the Biltmore Hotel Ballroom on Wednesday evening, June 16, 1965. Written and directed by Michael Brown, with music direction by Norman Paris, this review served double-duty by paying tribute to the long-deceased chief while acting as a lively advertising outlet for Donahue’s products. Musical reviews of this type were very popular at that time, being considered an ideal way to promote good will and morale among the employees of the honored company in question, while boosting sales for the supplier. Some of the featured numbers from Mr. Woolworth Had a Notion included, “Opening Day at the Five-and-Ten” and the lively “Woolworth Managers’ Work Song.” Executive producer Theodore P. Donahue was an old pro in the review arena, having already sponsored twenty-five of them for various American companies. The Woolworth’s review held special significance because Donahue’s father had teamed up with Frank Woolworth as a supplier half a century before in 1915, and the two companies had been bonded ever since.

  Hundreds of Woolworth’s employees were invited to attend Mr. Woolworth Had a Notion, which featured a commemorative record album of the same name. The album listed song lyrics, production team credits, a playbill of performers, and most important of all, the names of select, Donahue-distributed products. In between the cast lists, readers were reminded about the availability of Talon zippers, Simplicity Patterns, Italian white poodle pullovers, and A-line black wool jumpers. Not to be forgotten, menswear was also featured, including the practical “All-weather coat” (available in black and natural) for $16.95, and the classic stand-by, a white button down Oxford dress shirt for $2.99—a complimentary tie available for only a dollar more. Reportedly, Notion was a fun and memorable event for those who attended, as was the after-musical review party. Just as a sidenote, the commemorative record album is now very had to come by, and is eagerly sought by Woolworth’s five-and-dime collectors.

  Fifteen years after the cast of Mr. Woolworth Had a Notion played the New York Biltmore, the cast of anothe
r show centering around a dimestore made an Off-Broadway premier at the Hudson Guild Theater. Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean was Ed Graczyk’s critically acclaimed drama about a group of women who gather around a timeworn Woolworth’s lunch counter for a very special, and, as it turns out, very emotional reunion. The gals are there to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of their James Dean Fan Club, which began back in 1955, when their heartthrob was filming the movie Giant just a short drive away from the small Texas town’s five-and-dime. The original cast included Fannie Flagg and Barbara Loden, with David Kerry Heefner as the producing director. After a thirty-performance trial run beginning February 27, 1980, the project was shelved for two years, then made its all-important Broadway debut at the Martin Beck Theater in February, 1982. This time around, the stars included Cher, Sudie Bond, and Sandy Dennis, with direction by Robert Altman.

  Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean was more “Woolworthesque” than precisely “Woolworth’s.” Structurally, the tiny dimestore featured in the play was a composite of the many different luncheonettes and Red-Fronts located in rural America during the 1950s. However, for the New York Broadway version, F. W. Woolworth Co. and its employees did play an important supporting role. Production Designer David Gropman’s period set was composed of an authentic Woolworth lunch counter, complete with twirling stools and drink dispensers. The counter was donated by the F. W. Woolworth Company for the occasion, carefully dismantled from one of its East Coast stores. The entire population of employees of the Woolworth Building in New York was invited to attend the Broadway premier, along with a gala opening night party held at F. W. Woolworth’s historic “mother store” on 34th Street in Manhattan. A few former Woolworth’s employees also recall the official cast party which was held at Tavern on the Green in Central Park. The play was short-lived, closing two months later, on April 4, 1982.

  Album cover of “Mr. Woolworth Had a Notion.”

  The same year, a film of the same name was produced, with most of the cast members reprising their Broadway roles for the big screen, including Cher, Karen Black, and Sandy Dennis. Like the play, the film received mixed reviews. The movie was a box office disappointment, but garnered praise for some powerful performances. For those who saw either stage or film version, Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean was a nostalgic reminder of younger days, when hanging out at the local variety store’s lunch counter was much a part of a star-struck teenagers’ social daily life. (A bit of trivia: the original James Dean played into the Woolworth’s saga in a more intimate way than being featured in the play title. Before his early and tragic death in 1955, Dean had a brief affair with Frank Woolworth’s grandchild, Barbara Hutton.)

  Several other Broadway plays, before and after, have incorporated the old five-and-dime lunch counter settings into their scripts, but Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean was the only one known to actively involve the F. W. Woolworth Company during the course of its production.

  It is clear that the renown of F. W. Woolworth’s five-and-dimes reached far into the popular culture, finding its way, purposely or inadvertently into film, music, drama, and art. However, the true “spectacle” of the Red-Fronts was rooted in the individual stores themselves. From sea to sea, Woolworth’s stores made their mark. They achieved this in a variety of ways: via the architecture of its buildings, the mind-boggling square footage of the sales floor, and by the original displays and promotional gimmicks dreamed up by its managers.

  Chapter Eleven

  Woolworth’s Coast to Coast

  “Interpreting and satisfying the will and whim of people as consumers was still

  Woolworth’s prime mercantile function … By the very nature of their function,

  Woolworth’s stores had to be involved with, and closely identified with, the

  communities and neighborhoods in which they were located.”

  —John P. Nichols, 1973

  Which F. W. Woolworth’s Do You Remember … and Why?

  There was a certain uniformity to all F. W. Woolworth’s, including the brand-names they carried and their familiar mastheads. However, each Red-Front was also highly distinctive, shaped, to a great degree, by the personal experiences and lifestyles of its patrons, and by the size and geographical location of the store. One citizen might remember Woolworth’s as the site of a devastating fire on Main Street, while another recalls the big-city dimestore where her sweetheart (and present husband) proposed to her at the jewelry counter. In some cases, Woolworth’s was simply one of many bustling stores in a sprawling mall, in other cases it was “the” community hub, perhaps even thought of by its patrons as “a second home.”

  Over the decades, scores of people stopped in for sandwiches and hot chocolates at Woolworth’s lunch counters, but the circumstances that shaped these events were unique. For an adult, that repast might have been a routine stop en route to work, while for a child it was a luxury, possible only after saving up a week’s allowance. Everyone who shopped at Woolworth’s had the same opportunity to purchase Tangee lipstick or Woolco cottons, but the hows and whys of these purchases varied greatly. Was the buyer a young girl choosing lipstick for her first real date, or a housewife who wanted to experiment with a new color?

  TIME CAPSULE MEMORY

  “A Second Home”

  As a small child in the 1960s, our town had a five-and-ten on its main street, which was Mamaroneck Avenue in New York. It was my favorite store. Woolworth’s felt safe, like my own home.

  —Beth Rowan

  How Woolworth Helps Make Home Sweet Home!

  Furthermore, the types of people who patronized a particular Woolworth’s had a great impact on the store’s regional ambiance. A packed-to-the rafters, Chicago Red-Front frequented by busy executives evoked a starkly different feeling than that of the tiny Red-Front in rural Pennsylvania patronized by friendly, local farmers trying to make ends meet. The personalities and devotion of individual store employees also had an enormous impact. Some stores experienced a steady turnover of new managers, counter girls and stockboys, while others featured the same familiar faces for upward of twenty, sometimes forty years.

  During my research for Remembering Woolworth’s, it quickly became clear that the data I was collecting represented an individualized experience as much as a collective experience. Some of the company’s most poignant, even outrageous chronicles are to be found among the personal stories, memories, and experiences of those who shopped in Woolworth’s, worked in Woolworth’s, and on occasion, had their lives drastically altered as a result of their experiences with Woolworth’s. This is just as much a tale of the sole manager who gave his all to the Woolworth Company for forty years, as it is the tale of Frank Woolworth and his struggle to create a mercantile empire. Taking this concept one step further, this is just as much the story of hundreds of architecturally interesting, small-town Red-Fronts, as it is a tribute to the Woolworth Building of New York, once the tallest building in the world.

  Northampton Street, Looking West from Center Sq. Easton, Pa. E-11

  And so, one of the first questions that might be asked is: Which kind of F. W. Woolworth’s do you remember?

  TIME CAPSULE MEMORY

  “Boyhood Days in Ogden, Utah”

  My childhood experiences at F. W. Woolworth Co. made a significant and positive contribution to my philosophy, education and interests throughout my life. Much of my Woolworth experience can be attributed to my wonderful Aunt Barbara and the Woolworth’s store in Ogden, Utah. Aunt Barbara started taking me to the movies in the 1930s. On the way there, or after, she would sometimes stop in Woolworth’s and buy me Dentine chewing gum or Sen Sen breath fresheners. We would enjoy some ice cream or a root beer at the lunch counter. For my 12th birthday, she bought me a stamp album from Woolworth’s. It was a hardcover book and cost $1.00 (no tax) that initiated a sixty-year interest in stamp collecting. I still have that stamp album. She also bought me my first balsa wo
od model airplane. When I was 13, I got a larger Cessna model airplane for Christmas. That was followed by many models of military ships and airplanes used during World War II, all of them from Woolworth’s in Ogden. Now, the record of our cumulative Woolworth’s experiences is traveling through space at the speed of light. At this very moment, perhaps an astronomer on some distant sphere is looking at the words, ‘ F. W. Woolworth’ through a super-advanced telescope!

  —Thomas W. Johnston

  A Red-Front for Every Kind of Town

  According to Woolworth Company records, by January 1, 1920, every single town in the United States with a population of 8,000 or more had a Woolworth’s Red-Front. Over the years, the company moved into even smaller towns and villages, some with populations of under 4,000. By 1979, the F. W. Woolworth Company had stores in every state of the Union. At its peak there were over 3,000 assorted sizes of Red-Fronts in the United States alone, with scores more located in Canada, Mexico, and overseas. No chain of any kind, including the oldest of all chains, the great A&P Co. could boast that magnitude of geographical presence. Neither did the sum total of all of the five-and-dimes owned by Frank Woolworth’s arch competitors (including Newberry, McCrory, Kress, and Kresge) add up to as many stores as owned by the retail giant Woolworth’s. Consequently, wherever it was you lived, worked, or vacationed in North America, there was always an F. W. Woolworth Red-Front a short ride away: whether small, medium, or large.

  In Woolworth company language, “smaller” traditionally meant sales volume, as opposed to pure square footage. The bottom line was how many “dollar sales per square foot” were generated over a year’s time. But regardless of why they were considered small, these particular dimestores had a special ambiance. If you grew up in Bakersfield, California; Parkersburg, West Virginia; or Melrose, Massachusetts, you probably recall your local Woolworth’s as being cozy and quaint. Smaller Woolworth’s (especially those in rural towns) typically retained their employees for long stretches of time, and it was not unusual to have several members of one family sharing shifts. The same efficient manager was always there to greet everyone by name, or, in some cases, to double up as the town’s local magistrate. Over time, some of these Red-Fronts were remodeled to allow for more sales space, but for much of their long history, they remained markedly intimate in feeling. If you lived near a small Woolworth’s, you might not have memories of a long, spacious “Refreshment Room” or cafeteria, but you might recall standing at a tiny formica counter sipping a root beer float. In rural Woolworth’s stores that did happen to be equipped with cooking facilities, it was common to enjoy a bill of fare prepared by the same waitress/cook, who for years had used her own delectable recipe for apple pie.