Sylvan Nathan Goldman (November 15, 1898 - November 25, 1984) was an American businessman and inventor of the shopping cart, which had a pair of large wire baskets connected by tubular metal arms with four wheels[1][2][3]. He introduced the device on June 4, 1937, in the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain in Oklahoma City, of which he was the owner. With the assistance of a mechanic named Fred Young, Goldman constructed the first shopping cart, basing his design on that of a wooden folding chair. They built it with a metal frame and added wheels and wire baskets. Another mechanic, Arthur Kosted, developed a method to mass produce the carts by inventing an assembly line capable of forming and welding the wire. The cart was awarded patent number 2,196,914 on April 9, 1940 (Filing date: March 14, 1938), titled, "Folding Basket Carriage for Self-Service Stores". They advertised the invention as part of a new "No Basket Carrying Plan."
The invention did not catch on immediately. Men found them effeminate; women found them suggestive of a baby carriage. "I've pushed my last baby buggy," offended women informed him. After hiring several male and female models to push his new invention around his store and demonstrate their utility, as well as greeters to explain their use, shopping carts became extremely popular and Goldman became a multimillionaire by collecting a royalty on every shopping cart in the United States until his patents ran out.
Goldman served in World War I as a food requisitionist in France. After the war he opened Goldman Brother's Wholesale Fruits and Produce in Breckenridge, Texas with his brother Alfred. Years later, while living in California, Sylvan and Alfred were intrigued by a new type of grocery store that offered all products under one roof the supermarket. The brothers returned to Oklahoma in order to bring this new way of shopping to their home state. With Sylvan serving as president and Alfred as vice president of Sun Grocery Company, they opened a store on April 3, 1920, at 1403 East Fifteenth Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma. One year later there were twenty-one Sun Grocery markets throughout the state. Although Goldman's greatest contribution was inventing the shopping cart, with only an eighth grade education he revolutionized supermarkets and retailing in America today. Other inventions by Goldman includes the grocery sacker, the folding inter-office basket carrier, and the handy milk bottle rack. Goldman also invented the Baggage cart.
With his fortune Goldman (and his wife Margaret "Babe" Katz) were also known as a great philanthropists; as a patron of the arts and he contributed many works of art to Oklahoma institutions. He gave time and money to the National Conference of Christians and Jews at the Southwest Center for Human Relations at the University of Oklahoma. He received many honors, including honorary chief of the Pawnee Indian Tribe (1950), the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award (1965), a Distinguished Service Citation from the University of Oklahoma (1971), induction into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame (1971), and an honorary doctor of law degree from Oklahoma City University (1974). In January 1983 the Oklahoma Blood Institute moved to the Sylvan N. Goldman Center, located at 1001 North Lincoln Boulevard and named for Goldman, who donated $1.5 million for the center.
Goldman invested his fortune in grocery stores throughout the US and real estate mostly in Oklahoma, and some in Puerto Rico.