F.W. Woolworth and the American Five and Dime

F.W. Woolworth and the American Five and Dime PDF Author: Jean Maddern Pitrone
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786430249
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
For more than a century, Woolworth's five and dime stores represented Americana, mirroring the country's growth, its good times and bad, its foibles and its fads. The chain was founded by Frank W. Woolworth, who in 1879 established two stores--one in Utica, New York, which failed and was closed down, and another in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which succeeded and marked the beginning of the legacy of the Woolworth's Five and Tens. This work is a full account of the chain, its rags-to-riches founder, Frank W. Woolworth, and his flamboyant and tragic descendants. It traces the important role that Woolworth stores played in the sit-down strikes of the 1930s, the lunch counter sit-ins that began in Greensboro, North Carolina, as part of the Civil Rights movement (which tainted Woolworth's as the Big Business enemy of the downtrodden), and the gradual disintegration of the five and tens during the 1980s and early 1990s. The dramatic story is enhanced with important photos featuring such events as the closing of a Woolworth's in Germany by Nazi soldiers and the Greensboro sit-in as well as archival photos from Woolworth's 40th, 50th, and 60th anniversary booklets.

F.W. Woolworth and the American Five and Dime

F.W. Woolworth and the American Five and Dime PDF Author: Jean Maddern Pitrone
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786430249
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Get Book

Book Description
For more than a century, Woolworth's five and dime stores represented Americana, mirroring the country's growth, its good times and bad, its foibles and its fads. The chain was founded by Frank W. Woolworth, who in 1879 established two stores--one in Utica, New York, which failed and was closed down, and another in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which succeeded and marked the beginning of the legacy of the Woolworth's Five and Tens. This work is a full account of the chain, its rags-to-riches founder, Frank W. Woolworth, and his flamboyant and tragic descendants. It traces the important role that Woolworth stores played in the sit-down strikes of the 1930s, the lunch counter sit-ins that began in Greensboro, North Carolina, as part of the Civil Rights movement (which tainted Woolworth's as the Big Business enemy of the downtrodden), and the gradual disintegration of the five and tens during the 1980s and early 1990s. The dramatic story is enhanced with important photos featuring such events as the closing of a Woolworth's in Germany by Nazi soldiers and the Greensboro sit-in as well as archival photos from Woolworth's 40th, 50th, and 60th anniversary booklets.

Remembering Woolworth's

Remembering Woolworth's PDF Author: Karen Plunkett-Powell
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466867442
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 540

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Book Description
Remembering Woolworth's brings back to life all the nostalgia and magic of the famous five-and-dime that captured the hearts of Americans for over a century Millions of Americans have fond memories of shopping at Woolworth's, wandering the aisles in search of a humble spool of Woolco thread, festive Christmas decorations, a goldfish or parakeet, or a blue bottle of Evening in Paris perfume. And who could forget the special treat of a grilled-cheese sandwich or ice-cream sundae at the famous lunch counter? These and countless other memories are celebrated in Karen Plunkett-Powell's Remembering Woolworth's. Packed with photos, first-hand remembrances, vivid anecdotes, and a lively, well-researched narrative, the book tells the story of how a poor potato farmer named Frank Woolworth created a merchandising empire that touched the lives of Americans in small towns, big cities, and everywhere in between. Chapters cover the store's humble beginnings, surviving the Great Depression, the civil rights sit-ins, Woolworth's around the globe, the popularity of Woolworth's collectibles, and much more.

F. W. Woolworth and the Five and Dime

F. W. Woolworth and the Five and Dime PDF Author: George Nelson
Publisher: Bookbaby
ISBN: 9781667838922
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
"F.W. Woolworth and the Five and Dime: From Nickels to Dimes to Dollars" tells the story of a great American institution, the Five and Ten Cent Store. Utilizing his private collection of Woolworth publications [some dating from 1917], researching numerous books, magazines, newspaper articles, and websites, plus calling on his own personal recollections, Mr. Nelson has written an engaging story of not only the first Five & Ten, F.W. Woolworth, but other chains in the industry who contributed so much to the American consumer. These stores include S.S. Kresge, J.G. McCrory, W.T. Grant, G.C. Murphy, S.H. Kress, J.J. Newberry, Ben Franklin, and others. He provides the narrative of their founding, their growth, their impact on society and unfortunately their demise as the retail landscape changed. Now they are only memories. If you worked or shopped in one of these chains, this book will put a smile on your face.

Five and Ten

Five and Ten PDF Author: John K. Winkler
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1787207900
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
This book, first published in 1940, is the unmissable biography of Frank Winfield Woolworth (1852-1919), the American entrepreneur behind the F. W. Woolworth Company and the operator of variety stores known as “Five-and-Dimes”. He was also the first to use self-service display cases, so customers could examine what they wanted to buy without the help of a sales clerk. Woolworth founded an international financial empire with a short lease on a tiny store, a couple of gross of tin cans and a simple but revolutionary idea. Woolworth grew up a poor farm boy who tended his father’s cows barefoot, but he followed the great American dream by parlaying native ingenuity, business sense, and understanding of people into a huge fortune and establishing an institution that became a familiar part of America’s way of life.

Nickels and Dimes

Nickels and Dimes PDF Author: Nina Brown Baker
Publisher: Voyager Books/Libros Viajeros
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
The American success story of F.W. Woolworth, who with his idea for a ten-cent store, built a merchandising empire in the late 1800s.

The Skyscraper and the City

The Skyscraper and the City PDF Author: Gail Fenske
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226241416
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 427

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Book Description
Once the world’s tallest skyscraper, the Woolworth Building is noted for its striking but incongruous synthesis of Beaux-Arts architecture, fanciful Gothic ornamentation, and audacious steel-framed engineering. Here, in the first history of this great urban landmark, Gail Fenske argues that its design serves as a compelling lens through which to view the distinctive urban culture of Progressive-era New York. Fenske shows here that the building’s multiplicity of meanings reflected the cultural contradictions that defined New York City’s modernity. For Frank Woolworth—founder of the famous five-and-dime store chain—the building served as a towering trademark, for advocates of the City Beautiful movement it suggested a majestic hotel de ville, for technological enthusiasts it represented the boldest of experiments in vertical construction, and for tenants it provided an evocative setting for high-style consumption. Tourists, meanwhile, experienced a spectacular sightseeing destination and avant-garde artists discovered a twentieth-century future. In emphasizing this faceted significance, Fenske illuminates the process of conceiving, financing, and constructing skyscrapers as well as the mass phenomena of consumerism, marketing, news media, and urban spectatorship that surround them. As the representative example of the skyscraper as a “cathedral of commerce,” the Woolworth Building remains a commanding presence in the skyline of lower Manhattan, and the generously illustrated Skyscraper and the City is a worthy testament to its importance in American culture.

Dancing with the Devil

Dancing with the Devil PDF Author: Christopher Wilson
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1466873965
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The story of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor is one of the most romantic of all time: Edward VIII abdicated his throne and gave up an empire so that he could marry the woman he loved, American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Very few people suspected, and even fewer actually knew, that the Duchess cuckolded him—and almost gave him up—for a gay playboy twenty years her junior. Blond and slender, Jimmy Donahue was the archetypal post-war playboy. He could fly a plane, speak several languages, play the piano, and tell marvelous jokes. People loved him for his wit, charm and personality. The grandson of millionaire Frank W. Woolworth, Jimmy knew he would never need to work. Instead, he set about carving for himself a career of mischief. Some said evil. Gay at a time when the homosexual act was still illegal, Jimmy was notorious within America's upper class, and loved to shock. Though press agents arranged for him to be seen with female escorts, his pursuits, until he met the Duchess of Windsor, were exclusively homosexual. He was thirty-five when he was befriended by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in 1950. The Duchess was fifty-four, and despite the difference in age, there was an instant attraction. A burgeoning sexual relationship – a perverse sort of love – was formed between Jimmy and the Duchess. Together with the Duke, they became an inseparable trio, the closest of friends. As Jimmy had planned, the royal couple became obsessed with him. With information from surviving contemporaries, Dancing with the Devil by Christopher Wilson is the extraordinary tale of three remarkable people and their unique and twisted relationship.

For the Love of Murphy's: The Behind-the-Counter Story of a Great American Retailer

For the Love of Murphy's: The Behind-the-Counter Story of a Great American Retailer PDF Author:
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271047275
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description


Five and Ten

Five and Ten PDF Author: John Kennedy Winkler
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781258321895
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description


Skyscraper Gothic

Skyscraper Gothic PDF Author: Kevin D. Murphy
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813939739
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Of all building types, the skyscraper strikes observers as the most modern, in terms not only of height but also of boldness, scale, ingenuity, and daring. As a phenomenon born in late nineteenth-century America, it quickly became emblematic of New York, Chicago, and other major cities. Previous studies of these structures have tended to foreground examples of more evincing modernist approaches, while those with styles reminiscent of the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe were initially disparaged as being antimodernist or were simply unacknowledged. Skyscraper Gothic brings together a group of renowned scholars to address the medievalist skyscraper—from flying buttresses to dizzying spires; from the Chicago Tribune Tower to the Woolworth Building in Manhattan. Drawing on archival evidence and period texts to uncover the ways in which patrons and architects came to understand the Gothic as a historic style, the authors explore what the appearance of Gothic forms on radically new buildings meant urbanistically, architecturally, and socially, not only for those who were involved in the actual conceptualization and execution of the projects but also for the critics and the general public who saw the buildings take shape. Contributors: Lisa Reilly on the Gothic skyscraper ● Kevin Murphy on the Trinity and U.S. Realty Buildings ● Gail Fenske on the Woolworth Building ● Joanna Merwood-Salisbury on the Chicago School ● Katherine M. Solomonson on the Tribune Tower ● Carrie Albee on Atlanta City Hall ● Anke Koeth on the Cathedral of Learning ● Christine G. O'Malley on the American Radiator Building