It was the week of the county fair at Watertown, New York, and for our opening scene we have a county general store whose shelves could supply anything from a dish-pan to a night gown. Before it’s doors creaked the sign, “Moore and Smith”. And within it boasted a display of animation which challenged the activity at the fair grounds.

But the animation was caused apparently by nothing more than a long table draped with red calico and piled with an assortment of humble merchandise. Above it pushed and shoved an elbowing crowd which taxed the energies of three perspiring young men who were endeavoring to cope with its demands. But the most curious fact was that the crowd had continued not only during all of that day but the previous day – and people still came. An idea was being launched that was destined to revolutionize much of the history of retail merchandising.

Waving above the calico-draped table was the crude sign, “Anything here for five cents”. In a span of fifty years that crude sign and humble table were to grow into an international organization of flourishing establishments doing a business of nearly one million dollars a day – entirely on the receipts of nickels and dimes. The five cent bargain table at Watertown was the beginning of that amazing service which we call the F. W. Woolworth Co five and ten cent stores.

Three young clerks – two of them only boys – were the Woolworth brothers, Frank and Sumner, and their chum from a neighboring farm, Fred M. Kirby. Of the historic trio two are still living – Sumner Woolworth and Fred M. Kirby.

In those days Frank Woolworth was a tall, slim young man of twenty-six, rather looked up to by his companions because he was making as much as ten dollars a week – and perhaps because, as his brother says today, he could tell without hesitation the difference between dress linings and ginghams.

But Frank Woolworth could do much more than that. He had an ability for constructive thinking that could see beyond the confines of the country store and the day’s job. The success of the five cent bargain table he saw ore than a lucky experiment. After all, the people in Watertown could not be greatly different from the people in other communities – and the demand for the necessities for everyday live at the low standard price must exist everywhere. One day he approached his boss, W. H. More, with a daring proposal.

“I think there is a chance to develop a permanent store specializing altogether in five cent sales. I believe that it would render a new and unique buying service. There is a location in Utica. Will you trust me with a stock of three hundred dollars to try it out?”

Mr. Moore was a conservative man – but he believed in his young clerk, “I’ll do it!” he said.

The store in Utica however, was a disappointment. In a few weeks the sales had dropped to as low as $2.50 a day. Another young man would have called it hard luck – and given up in disgust – but Frank Woolworth tried to find the cause for his disappointment that might be corrected.

He was certain that he had a sound idea – that he was offering the public an opportunity to buy on a new basis of economy those articles most in demand in every household. He knew, too, that it was a year of uncertain business conditions. The country was just beginning to emerge from the reconstruction period following the havoc of the Civil War. Politically and industrially the nation was in turmoil. Money was at a premium, employment precarious, and most families compelled to retrench.

But Frank Woolworth had been reared in an environment of rigid economy. From his earliest boy hood on the far he had been compelled to “Count the pennies,” – and he could understand the need of others in the same position.

There could not be a better time, he reasoned, to introduce a merchandising policy build on the principals of economy. It was simply a question of making the public understand what he was offering. Could he do it?

He returned to the men who had financed, “I am satisfied that there is nothing wrong with our plan,” he told them. “I believe in it more than ever – but I want to try another location. Will you extend my credit?” Under the circumstances it was a big question. Mr. Moore consulted with is partner, Perry R. Smith. “A boy like that,” said the latter, “Deserves another chance.”

With a second stock of merchandise Frank Woolworth took a train for Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He was bringing a new idea to a community he did not know – and banking entirely on his confidence in that idea.

The sales for his first day amounted to $127—and the enthusiasm in the air told him that he had won. The young country clerk, whose principal capital was faith in himself, had established the first successful five and ten cent store in the world.

His first year’s business amounted to more than six thousand dollars – and in the meantime he had expanded his original idea in two directions which were to mark two of the most important steps in modern merchandising.

His first conception of an exclusive five cent counter was enlarged to include ten cent items which he reasoned would establish a field large enough to provide an adequate service for the public. It was characteristic of Frank Woolworth’s vision that from the beginning he definitely set a ten cent price as his extreme limit of expansion contending that further enlargement destroyed the value of his fundamental idea to provide more buying power for the small coins of the world.

After fifty years of progress – although the F. W. Woolworth Co has grown now to 1800 stores in five countries – the inception of its founder has never been altered except in those sections where long distances and heavy freight rates have made imperative an advance on certain items to fifteen cents.

Before his first year of experience as a merchant was over, Frank Woolworth saw, too, that the service value of his idea would be multiplied by a union of stores with quantity buying powers far beyond the possibilities of any individual store. While the economy was always the basic principle of his policy he felt from the outset that it would be fatal to sacrifice quality for price. He believed that eh problems of any assured quality at a lower price cold always be answered by increased production – if that increase could be made large enough. It was the dream of a boy from the country with a great ambition but no capital. Yet it is such dreams that have changed history!

One day C. S. Woolworth in Watertown received a letter from his “big brother”. “I see an opportunity for another store, “ he wrote, “Do you want to go in with me?” And Moore and Smith lost another promising young employee.

But those pioneering days of the Woolworth history were to record a period of stress and struggle which was to try the souls of the young promoters. If they had expected an instant, universal success they would have been quickly and sadly disillusioned.

For instance, the first joint venture of the Woolworth brothers was undertaken at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and although they could have, have put more enthusiasm or painstaking labor into it – at the end of eight months they saw that their success was not enough to justify continuing. The profit for the entire period was less than six hundred dollars.

Without bemoaning their fate they moved their stock to York, Pennsylvania – but after three months the profits in the new location were only thirty-six dollars.

Again the stock was packed up - what there was left of it – and shipped back to Lancaster while the brothers proceeded to analyze their situation – and decide their next step.

Two young men less determined would have called the year of experimentation quite enough and would have been content with the success (now definitely established) of the one store at Lancaster.

But Frank Woolworth had never swerved in his belief in the future of the five and ten cent business, and he was convinced that the opportunity of public service which he saw could be attained only by a union of stores with the resources of a great organization.

But he knew, too, that he was selling a new idea – and that it could progress only as fast as he could educate others to it. But if the public in Lancaster felt such a need for Woolworth service that same need must exist in every community.

In the fall of 1880 the Woolworth brothers made their next effort at expansion when a store was opened at Scranton under the direction of C. S. Woolworth.

“The space is so large, “ says Mr. Woolworth in recalling those stirring days of his youth, “That we had to build a partition about two-thirds of the way back in order to make a decent showing of our stock – and we had to spread it out pretty thin in spots at that!”

The old account book of C. S. Woolworth shows that although the sales for the opening day were only $13.27, the sales for the first year were more than nine thousand dollars – beating the showing at Lancaster by a considerable margin. The Woolworth idea had made another success!

“If we have the confidence of the public in what we are trying to do,” declared Frank Woolworth, “nothing is impossible for us.” And then he added – “But we can’t expect to have that confidence until we have earned it.” Those words have never been changed as the guiding maxim of the F. W. Woolworth Co in all of it’s fifty years of history.

By the end of the year 1884, the idea of the five and ten cent store was beginning to make itself felt as a new factor in retail merchandising – which for the first time without cutting quality was making it impossible to purchase the everyday needs of the home on a basis of standardized economy.

It was at this time that the Woolworth brothers were joined by two associates, who were also to make their names distinguished in American business.

The first of these was a graduate of the general store of Moore and Smith in Watertown like themselves – Fred M. Kirby, a young clerk who helped with the books when he was not working behind counter, and who had managed by close economy to save five hundred dollars a week. “I think there is a good opening in Wilkes-Barre for a store like ours in Scranton,” wrote C. S. Woolworth to him, “What do you say?”

The venture required six hundred dollars for a half interest. Mr. Kirby borrowed one hundred dollars to add to his savings, and reported for business. There are those who might have called him a venturesome young man – but Fred Kirby was a firm believer in the foundation principles of the five and ten cent store, and he had learned early the vital lesson that confidence is as important an asset as capital in business.

Thus it happened that three young clerks, farm boys from a humble country store who could not have seemed farther removed from any opportunity for advancement found themselves embarked in a business of their own, which was to change their whole lives and open a new world of possibilities to them.

In the same year, Frank Woolworth in Lancaster received a visit from a cousin, S. H. Knox – another ambitious young man, who had accumulated a few hundred dollars and was looking for a chance to invest it. “If you are not afraid of hard work why not try our business?” asked Mr. Woolworth. And S. H. Knox became enrolled among the pioneers of the five and ten cent store – opening first in Reading, Pennsylvania and then in Newark, New Jersey. But he was to find as did his companions that the business success is not achieved with a magic wand.

The sales in his Newark store dwindled to a point where it seemed as though he could not survive. One day Mr. Woolworth found him in tears with an open letter in his hand. It was from his Mother. “I know of your splendid fight, my son,” she wrote, “and I am sending you what I have saved in the hope that it will help you.” It was a money order for forty dollars.

The hard-pressed young man did not use the money but it gave him the inspiration to continue his struggle. Later Mr. Woolworth suggested Erie, Pennsylvania to him as a promising location for a new store and Mr. Knox invested in it every dollar he could raise. The opening was on Saturday but up until noon there were less than thirty customers, and the proprietor was too discouraged to eat his dinner.

In an effort to cheer him, Frank Woolworth took him for a walk around the public park, secretly dreading the moment of their return. As they came within sight of the store again, they paused in amazement. The walk outside was jammed with people crowding to get in. From that day the success of the five and ten cent store in Erie was assured.

A year later when Fred M. Kirby in Wilkes-Barre was engaged in much the same kind of discouraging fight he received a visit from a stranger, who seemed very much interested in his store and what he was doing. “Stick to it,” said his visitor heartily, “and you will win through. Don’t give up.” He smiled. “I speak from my own experience.” He was S. H. Knox – and he made the trip to Wilkes-Barre for the express purpose of giving encouragement to his young associate. His act of thoughtful kindliness did much to help Mr. Kirby win through to the splendid success that was ahead of him.

It was in the year 1886 that a tall young man walked slowly down lower Broadway in New York City. He was looking for a small office in which he was to lay the foundations of the most remarkable buying organization which the business world had ever known. His name was Frank Woolworth.

In seven years he had seen the idea which he had launched in his unpretentious little store in Lancaster grown to proportions which seem to him to demand a metropolitan background and a larger horizon from which to direct his merchandising activities to the greatest advantage to his customers.

It is illuminating fact that Frank Woolworth always thought from the viewpoint of his customers. “We will prosper only so long as we hold our public,” was his merchandising philosophy, “and the most practical way to do that is to find what the public wants to buy – not what we want to sell it.”

Even in the later years of his glorious triumph – when the majestic Woolworth Tower reared its outlines above the Manhattan skyline – it was Frank Woolworth’s custom to stand in the great lobby in late afternoon and study the faces of the homeward-hurrying throngs – eager to see what interested them the most and how the Woolworth stores might best apply that interest to their counters.

In the early days of the general store of Moore and Smith a genial young man (traveling), specializing in household necessities, made periodical visits to Watertown, seldom leaving without a generous order. His name was Earl P. Charlton – and during his visits it was not strange that the beginnings of a warm friendship should be found between him and the young clerks who later were to astonish the business world.

When their paths let away from Watertown, Mr. Charlton managed to include their new location in his itinerary, and became not only one of the principal sources of their merchandising supplies, but one of their most vigorous champions.

“There is a great opportunity for your business in the New England states,” he said one day to S. H. Knox. “Why don’t you try it with me?” was the answer. And Earl P. Charlton was added to the roster of pioneers of the five and ten cent stores. From his first venture with Mr. Knox at Fall River, Massachusetts, there was to grow one of the most flourishing organizations in the field.

It is worthy of note that without exception all of the men that made the five and ten cent stores possible were connected in some capacity with the firm of Moore and Smith. The little general store at Watertown may properly be regarded as the birthplace of one of the most far-reaching business ideas in American history – and it was only fitting that the two proprietors should themselves embark in the field which they had done so much to develop for others – W. H. Moore establishing in 1885 and exclusive five and ten cent store in the same room which had see the introduction of the historic five cent bargain table in the week of the county fair, later following at Schenectady, New York – and Perry R. Smith opening several stores in the western states.

In 1889 – Ten years after the first successful Woolworth store – The F. W. Woolworth Co included the following locations: Lancaster, Reading, Harrisburg, Easton and Allentown, Pennsylvania. Trenton, New Jersey; Elmira, Utica and Poughkeepsie, New York. Wilmington, Delaware; New Haven, Connecticut; and Springfield, Massachusetts.

In addition there were the constantly expanding interests of C. S. Woolworth, F. M. Kirby, S. H. Knox, Earle P. Charlton and W. H. Moore at Watertown which, while allied in spirit, with the closest personal friendship between the directing heads, all functioned separately.

In his small office on lower Broadway, Frank Woolworth was debating one of the big problems oh his career. His own stores now numbered thirteen, in addition to the various enterprises of the men who had associated themselves with him in the field of his new endeavor. The idea which had been launched twelve years before in an unpretentious room with a three hundred dollar stock had developed to proportions demanding a more drastic decision than any that the young pioneer had yet been called upon to make.

If he expanded further he should have to enlarge the entire horizon of his activities. Should he seen now the broader realization of his early dreams – which a few years ago had seemed impossible – an endeavor to build the five and ten cent idea into a great national merchandising service? Or should he play it safe and satisfy himself with the success which he had already achieved?

He was not yet forty years of age, and he had reached a position in the business world by sheer initiative and industry which might well have been envied. Should he jeopardize this positioning the effort to build a mighty commercial structure which might crush him?

As he debated the question, Frank Woolworth had been starting down to the roaring canyon of Broadway, and when he turned away his eyes were gleaming and his face resolute. He had made his decision which, although he did not know it, was destined to touch the lives of tens of millions of people and produce the world’s greatest retail merchandising organization. His first step obviously was to find the right men to help him.

The Woolworth five and ten cent service had come at the beginning of a new period of invention and development in the small conveniences of the home. Comforts which had been unknown a generation ago were introducing a new era in housekeeping – and Frank Woolworth believed that if he could offer the manufacturers a large enough national market he could at once bring such items out of the luxury class. It was a question of imagination plus organization – and a mercantile daring which would not be bound down by custom or tradition.

At the time when Frank Woolworth had been employed as a clerk in Watertown another young man was working in a similar capacity for a competitor. His name was Carson C. Peck. Inspired by the success which his friends had achieved for themselves, his own ambitions were aroused. “What do you think of my going into business with you?” he asked Mr. Woolworth one day during a trip of the latter to Watertown.

Mr. Woolworth thought so much of the suggestion that he agreed at once – and in his turn made a proposal. He had never been satisfied with the lack of success in his first venture at Utica and here was an opportunity to make another effort in that community.

With the cooperation of Mr. Peck a second Utica store was opened, and within a few months it had more than made up for it’s early disappointment. It is interesting to note that in all of these communities where the five and ten cent idea had not registered at once Frank Woolworth’s later perseverance followed with a second store which never failed.

When Mr. Woolworth saw that the time had come to build a national merchandising organization to measure up to his plans of expansion, the first man whom he asked to help him was Carson C. Peck. “I am going to give you the opportunity of a lifetime,” he told him. And he did.

Another desk was added to the little office on lower Broadway, and soon it was forced to seek a larger space as more and more of the familiar red fronts of the Woolworth five and ten cent stores began to dot the country, and more communities were given the conveniences of the compact display counters, the simply arranged merchandise and the standardized economy process.

The expansion of the Woolworth five and ten cent idea was accomplished actually by various distinct organizations – all growing out of the little general store of Moore and Smith at Watertown. Indeed, in some features, they are much like a large and harmonious family whose members never allowed their loyalty to one another to falter.

Frank Woolworth had been the first to undertake the big adventure into the outside world and he remained always the trail-blazer and guiding spirit – helping the others until each had acquired confidence enough in his own strength to stand alone – and as they branched out seeking those location which would not conflict with the plans of their associates. Each developed his own territory in his own way but all were united in an allegiance which never knew a disturbing note.

In 1883, C. S. Woolworth, in Scranton, bought out his brother’s interest and operated the business independently. After three years his assets were less than five thousand dollars – “But I knew that I had made a solid foundation on which to build,” he says. And he proceeded to build so effectively that within a few years he was opening various branch stores in other cities, and soon had carried his name into several states. The man who had started with one of the most prosperous mercantile organizations in the country.

In those days of struggle, C. S. Woolworth often opened his store at seven o’clock in the morning and remained at the counters until nine in the evening. The founders of the Woolworth stores were all trained to hard work and for years after they had started in business most of their labor in their establishments was done with their own hands. The physical development of their idea was not left to the others.

Perhaps this is one reason why they were able to make their merchandise so intimate a part of the everyday life about them. They were selling to a public which, like themselves, could appreciate hard work and economy.

The early experience of F. M. Kirby in Wilkes-Barre was much like that of Mr. Woolworth. In an interesting memorandum of his early days he says, “I made up my mind to wait on as many customers as I could myself, feeling that I could do it better than anyone I could hire, and hoping that I could communicate some of my own enthusiasm in what I was selling.”

Mr. Kirby’s desk in his first store was an old dry goods box covered with oilcloth, and he thought he was extravagant when he paid four dollars for a desk chair to go with it. Incidentally, he still cherished that chair as a souvenir of his first experiences as a merchant. He did not know then that within less than twenty years he was to be the proprietor of ninety-six flourishing stores in as many different cities.

The third of the pioneers of the five and ten cent business who is still actively associated with the F. W. Woolworth Co is Earle Pl Charlton, and his career furnishes as dramatic a chapter of American business as the others have contributed.

When Mr. Charlton in 1896, following the lead of his companions, decided to operate independently, he extended his interests to Canada and the western states, introducing the five and ten cent stores to the Pacific coast.

When the great earthquake and fire swept San Francisco in 1906, Mr. Charlton had just left the city where he had located his largest store. A telegram announced that the building was in ruins. Within an hour an answer was on it’s was with the instruction for the erection of a new site – and in thirty days a new store was opened to the public, the first retail business to resume operations in the devastated zone.

If the growth of the five and ten cent idea had been slow in the beginning, once it’s opportunities of price and convenience were established in the public mind, its progress was almost unbelievably rapid. Within a quarter of a century it had grown from a series of local retail stores to a commanding place in American business – and within another ten years it had reached the proportions of a national merchandising service which was fast blanketing the continent – and in a thousand ways adding to the welfare and comfort of American homes.

In the year 1912, just thirty three years after the opening of the first F. W. Woolworth store in Lancaster, the public was started by the announcement of a merger of all the interests owned and operated by the F. W. Woolworth Co; S. H. Knox and Co; F. M. Kirby and Co.; E. P. Charlton and Co.; C. S. Woolworth; and W. H. Moore.

When it was stated that the merger included 596 individual stores, the fact was regarded with wonder. But within less than twenty years the number of stores was to be multiplied by three, covering not only the United States, Cuba and Canada, but England and Germany – which were demanding in the same opportunities as America. And the first year’s business of fifty million dollars of the merger had been multiplied nearly five times – reaching nearly one million dollars a day.

But the F. W. Woolworth Co had grown to be much more than a great business factor. It had become such an intimate part of everyday life that more than ten million people were being served at its counters each day – the counters which had developed in fifty ears from the five cent bargain table of the county fair at Watertown.

We approach now the story of the five and ten cent store of today. But for the beginning of that story it in necessary to go back to the year 1892 when Frank Woolworth in his little Broadway office was approached by a youth of nineteen in search of a job.

“What can you do for me?” asked Mr. Woolworth. “I think I would make you a good bookkeeper,” was the prompt answer. “If I can, I will use you, “ said Mr. Woolworth. Twenty-seven years later, the eater-faced young man was to succeed him as president of the F. W. Woolworth Co.

But when Hubert T. Parson took off his coat and went to work on the accounts for he fourteen stores which the company operated at that time, there was certainly no indication of what the future was to hold for him – or of the astonishing multiplication it was to bring to the fourteen Woolworth stores of those days.

As reduced to paper the successive steps in the advancement of H. T. Parson give the scant evidence of all that was behind them – nor of the drama of American business of which they were a part.

Beginning as accountant in those days when Frank Woolworth was yet many years from the climax of his career eh was given an unusual and intimate opportunity to absorb the atmosphere of the organization which had made it possible for millions to satisfy for five or ten cents many needs which previously, generations could not satisfy at any price.

From accountant Mr. Parson was elevated to secretary and then to treasurer of the now mighty corporation.

When Chares C. Griswald who had succeeded Carson C. Peck as general manager, died in 1916 it was Hubert T. Parson – just over forty – who was next in line. At the time the interests of the F. W. Woolworth Co included 920 stores doing a business of more than eighty five million dollars a year. In 1919 came the year of the greatest loss which the cooperation had been called upon to suffer in the death of F. W. Woolworth who’s vision had conceived it and whose optimistic courage had built it. Who was there to take the place which the genius of Frank Woolworth had created?

The answer came in the announcement that Hubert T. Parson – who had started as a bookkeeper hardly twenty-five years before – had been chosen president of the world’s greatest retail merchandising organization.

The mantle of Frank Woolworth had fallen to a man whom like himself had nothing but the ambitions of youth on which to build.

Cold facts are sometimes more eloquent than glowing words. When Mr. Parson took the helm of the F. W. Woolworth Co it’s stores had just passed the one thousand mark – with annual sales of about one hundred twenty million dollars. Today – after ten years – the roster includes more than eighteen hundred stores with annual sale more than twice as great.

Such is the realization of the dream of a country boy who would not admit defeat.

© 1998-2004 Christopher Certa