F. W. Woolworth Company
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| F. W. Woolworth Company | |
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| Fate | Name changed in 1997 to Venator Group, and in 2001 to Foot Locker, Inc.[1] |
| Founded | 1878 |
| Defunct | 1997 (when firm name changed) |
| Location |  New York, NY |
| Industry | Retail |
| Products | Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, consumer electronics and housewares |
| Subsidiary | Woolco (defunct 1983 in the U.S., Canadian stores sold to Wal-Mart in 1994) Woolworths Group plc (separate 1982) Woolworth GmbH (separate 1998) Kinney Shoe Company (acquired 1963), now Foot Locker (successor) |
The F. W. Woolworth Company (often referred to as Woolworth's) was a retail company that was one of the original American five-and-dime stores. The first Woolworth's store was founded, with a loan of $300, in 1878 by Frank Winfield Woolworth. Despite growing to be one of the largest retail chains in the world through most of the 20th century, increased competition led to its decline beginning in the 1980s. In 1997, F. W. Woolworth Company converted itself into a sporting goods retailer, closing its remaining retail stores operating under the "Woolworth's" brand name and renaming itself Venator Group. By 2001, the company focused exclusively on the sporting goods market, changing its name to the present Foot Locker Inc (NYSE: FL).
Retail chains using the Woolworth name survive in the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Mexico, and South Africa. The similarly-named Woolworth's supermarkets in Australia and New Zealand are operated by Woolworths Limited, a separate company with no historical links to the F. W. Woolworth Company or Foot Locker, Inc.
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[edit] History
[edit] Origin
The F.W. Woolworth Co. was among the first five-and-dime stores, which sold discounted general merchandise at fixed prices, usually five or ten cents, undercutting the prices of other local merchants. Woolworth's, as the stores popularly became known, was one of the first American retailers to put merchandise out for the shopping public to handle and select without the assistance of a sales clerk. Earlier retailers had kept all merchandise behind a counter, and customers presented the clerk with a list of items they wished to buy. After working in a dry goods store in Watertown, New York, Frank Winfield Woolworth opened his first Woolworth’s store in Utica, New York, in 1878, but the store failed within a year. However, a second store he opened on June 21, 1879 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, became a success. Frank Woolworth brought his brother Charles Sumner Woolworth into the business, and together they opened more stores, often in partnership with other business associates. The Woolworth brothers also entered into partnerships with “friendly rivals” to maximize inventory purchasing power for both parties.
[edit] Rise and expansion
In 1910, Frank Woolworth commissioned the construction of the Woolworth Building in New York City. This building was entirely paid for in cash. It was completed in 1913 and was the tallest building in the world until 1930. It also served as the company’s headquarters until it was sold by the F.W. Woolworth Company’s successor, the Venator Group, in 1998.
By 1911, there were six chains of affiliated stores operating in the United States and Canada. That year, Frank and Charles incorporated the F. W. Woolworth Company and through a merger brought all 596 stores together under one corporate entity. One of the "friendly rival" predecessor chains included several stores initially opened as Woolworth & Knox stores starting as early as September 20, 1884 as well as S. H. Knox & Co. 5 & 10 Cent Stores opened after an 1889 buyout by his cousin, Seymour H. Knox I. Knox's chain grew to 98 U.S. and 13 Canada stores by the time of the corporate consolidation in 1911. Fred Kirby added 96 stores, Earle Charlton added 35, Charles Sumner Woolworth added 15, and William Moore added 2.[2]
The stores eventually incorporated lunch counters after the success of the counters in the first store in the UK in Liverpool and served as general gathering places, a precursor to the modern shopping mall food court. A Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina became the setting for a significant event during the civil rights movement (see below).
The Woolworth's concept was widely copied, and five-and-ten-cent stores (also known as five-and-dime stores) were a fixture in American downtowns through the 1960s, and became anchors for suburban strip malls by the mid 1970s. Criticisms that five-and-dime stores drove local merchants out of business would repeat themselves in the early 21st century, when big box discount stores became popular. However, many five-and-dime stores were locally owned or franchised, as are many dollar stores today.
In the 1960s, the five-and-dime concept evolved into the larger discount store format. In 1962, Woolworths founded a discount chain called Woolco. This was the same year as its competitors opened similar retail chains that sold merchandise at a discount: the S.S. Kresge Company opened Kmart; Dayton Company opened Target; and Sam Walton opened his first Wal-Mart store.
By Woolworth’s 100th anniversary in 1979, it had become the largest department store chain in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
[edit] Expansion
Woolworth's expansion led to specialty store acquisitions. In 1963, Woolworth purchased the Kinney Shoe Corporation and operated it as a subsidiary. That led to specialty shoe store expansion, including Stylco in 1967, Susie Casuals in 1968, and Foot Locker in 1974.
Woolworth also diversified its portfolio of specialty stores in the 1980s, including Afterthoughts, Northern Reflections, and Champs Sports. By 1989, the company was pursuing an aggressive strategy of multiple specialty store formats targeted at enclosed shopping malls. The idea was that if a particular retail concept failed at a given mall, the company quickly could replace it with a different one. The company's purported goal was to operate 10 various specialty stores in each major American shopping mall, but this never came to pass as Woolworth never was able to develop that number of successful specialty retail formats. This activity, however, did lead to the development of the successful Foot Locker and Northern Reflections apparel shops, as well as Best Of Times, a timepiece retailer.
[edit] Decline
In 1989, Woolworth purchased Champs Sports, leading to the development of the Woolworth Athletic Group.
The growth and expansion of the company contributed to its downfall. The Woolworth company moved away from its five-and-dime roots and placed less emphasis on its department store chain as it focused on its specialty stores. But the company was unable to compete with other chains that had eroded its market share. While it was a success in Canada, the Woolco chain closed in the United States in 1983. On October 15, 1993, Woolworths embarked on a restructuring plan that included closing half of its 800-plus general merchandise stores in the United States and converting its Canadian stores to a closeout division named The Bargain! Shop. Woolco and Woolworth survived in Canada until 1994, when the majority of its stores there were sold to Wal-Mart. Stores that were not purchased by Wal-Mart were converted to The Bargain! Shop stores.
[edit] Transition
Still with the decline of the signature stores, Woolworth marched on with a new focus toward athletic goods on January 30, 1997, acquiring the mail-order catalog athletic retailer Eastbay.
On July 17, 1997, Woolworths closed its remaining department stores in the U.S. and changed its corporate name to Venator. In that same year, Wal-Mart replaced Woolworths on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Analysts at the time cited the lower prices of the large discount stores and the expansion of supermarket grocery stores -- which had begun to stock merchandise also sold by five-and-dime stores -- as contributors to Woolworth's decline in the late 20th century.
In 1999, Venator moved out of the Woolworth building in New York City to offices on 34th Street. On October 20, 2001, the company changed names again; this time, it took the name of its top retail performer and became Foot Locker, Inc. Foot Locker stores chiefly sell athletic clothing and footwear.
[edit] Greensboro sit-in
On February 1, 1960, four African-American students sat down at a segregated lunch counter in a Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth's store. They were refused service, touching off six months of sit-ins and economic boycotts that became a landmark event in the U.S. civil-rights movement. In 1993, an eight-foot section of the lunch counter was moved to the Smithsonian Institution.
[edit] Non-American retail users of the Woolworth name
- See also: Woolworth (disambiguation)
- Woolworths Group plc originally was the British unit of F.W. Woolworths, but has operated independently as a separate company since 1982.
- Woolworths Limited is the largest retail corporation in Australia, operating a variety of supermarket and other retail chains in Australia and Woolworths Supermarkets (New Zealand), and is in no way connected to F.W. Woolworth or the now-defunct U.S. or current U.K. Woolworths banners.
- Woolworths is an upmarket retail chain in South Africa selling goods of a comparable nature to Marks & Spencer stores in the United Kingdom.
- Woolworth GmbH was the German unit of F.W. Woolworths, but has operated independently since 1998 as a result of the original company's change of focus.
- Woolworth Mexicana operates a chain of small variety stores in Mexico as a subsidiary of Groupo Comercial Control, S.A. de C.V. [1]
[edit] In popular culture
- A sit-in protest took place at the downtown Jackson, Mississippi Woolworth's in 1963.
- The Jimmy McHugh-Dorothy Fields song I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby the breakout hit of "Blackbirds of 1928", features the lyric 'Diamond bracelets Woolworth doesn't sell, baby'.
- "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer," a song from Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats, contains the line, " ... or after supper one of the girls suddenly missed her Woolworth pearls ... "
- In the Indigo Girls' song Least Complicated, there is repeated reference to a ring. Emily Saliers said in the spoken intro to the song on the CD 1200 Curfews that she bought the ring at Woolworth's.
- In 1986, Nanci Griffith included a tribute song to her former home-town (Austin, Texas) Woolworth's store, "Love at the Five and Dime" on the album Last of the True Believers.[2]
- The X Ray Spex wrote a song called Warrior in Woolworths on the album Germ Free Adolescents, this song was about the lead singer, Poly Styrene, working in the typing pool for the firm.
- The 1975 album Nighthawks at the Diner by Tom Waits references jewelry from Woolworth's in the song Eggs and Sausage (In a Cadillac with Susan Michelson). It may also reference the origins of the chain as a five and dime store.
In a graveyard charade, a late shift masquerade 2 for a quarter, dime for a dance with Woolworth rhinestone diamond earrings, and a sideway's glance . . .
- In the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, George Clooney's character, Everett McGill, is thrown out of "the Woolsworth's" after a fist fight with his wife's suitor.
- Woolworth's is referenced in the As Friends Rust song "Where The Wild Things Were" with the lyric "It was 1989, Entered the world of crime. Banned from Woolworth's for all time."
- A temporary Woolworth's storefront was placed on New Haven, Connecticut's Chapel Street for exterior shots of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
