Remembering Woolworth’s

by Karen Plunkett-Powell

  In less celebratory cases, managers such as Frank “Curly” Harris also found themselves plunged into America’s own crisis, such as with the Greensboro, North Carolina, sitins of the Civil Rights Movement. Others had to contend with fires in their stores, or deal with wage strikes.

  All agreed that a Woolworth’s manager’s life was never dull. The hours were long, and the work was hard, but it is worth noting that by the time of Frank’s passing in 1919, some of his managers were making over $15,000 per year, a fortune in those days. Those who had been wise enough to purchase stock several years before, when the company incorporated, made even more. Managers also had the additional incentive to keep working hard until they could take over as regional managers, or even serve on the board of directors, at which time their salaries would increase to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The store managers of the old F. W. Woolworth Company were considered by its chief to be the hope and ultimate resource for the future of the company. And the chief treated them accordingly.

  TIME CAPSULE MEMORY

  “The Photo Machines”

  I remember those great Woolworth’s photo machines: four photos for twenty-five cents. On Thursday evenings in Paterson, New Jersey, half of Eastside High’s students (and about half from Central High) went into town, and we would try to crowd as many kids as possible into the photo booth. We would then close the curtain, insert the quarter, and voila! About every fifteen seconds a flash would go off, and we would pose and make faces. Minutes later the developed pictures would fall out of the slot, creating a new memory.

  —Arlene Rose Kuzora, Lodi

  Unfortunately, this was not the case with the women who formed the bulk of his empire: the Woolworth’s counter girls.

  The Counter Girls

  “For millions of customers,” wrote author James Brough, “Mr. Woolworth represented a kind of all-season Santa Claus. But had he, in fact, been an image of benignity or something different? Whatever he had made of himself, he was no Saint Nicholas.” Indeed, when it came paying his hard-working female wage employees, Mr. Woolworth was an old Scrooge. For all of his outstanding leadership qualities, and his spirit of enterprise, Mr. Frank Woolworth never quite recognized the value of his female workforce.

  They were called the “Woolworth Girls” or the “Woolworth Counter Girls,” and they made up over eighty percent of his employee ranks. Between 1876 and 1940, the average age span of Woolworth’s counter girls was eighteen to twenty-one. They were, for the most part, unmarried, living at home, and involved in their first experience in the business world. They often worked from nine in the morning until ten at night, at which time they positioned their “fire buckets,” covered their counters with muslin, and set off for home. The counter girls were considered the lowest form of employee, yet without them there would not have even been a Woolworth dynasty.

  One of the reasons he was able to run his earliest stores with such tight profit margins was because of his ability to utilize cheap labor. Since he displayed the merchandise openly on individual counters (one for sewing notions, one for candy, etc.) he created a structure whereby the customers made most of their own buying decisions. This virtually eliminated the need for salesmanship, and in turn, it also eliminated the need to find top quality, experienced salesmen. Instead, he could hire scores of young counter girls who had only to look clean and neat (and preferably pretty) and keep the counters organized. Since the prices were fixed (either a nickel or a dime), and these prices were clearly posted near all the counters, the girls didn’t even have to be particularly good at mathematics. For this, Frank reasoned, a $1.50 or so a week was plenty.

  Beginning in 1879, and for over a decade, the Woolworth’s counter girls quietly accepted this policy. They were of the mind (as was their boss) that they were really only working there until they could get married, or because working allowed them to make enough money to feel somewhat independent. But by the winter of 1892, things had started to change. Some of the girls realized they hadn’t gotten married and might need a job for a long time. Other girls saw their friends, the stockboys, being rewarded for their hard work with raises and promotions. They also started to hear stories about counter girls at rival five-and-dimes who were making more money. Something, they realized, was not right. And so, they started to rebel. Counter girls from Frank’s busiest stores asked for higher wages, and when they were denied, they decided to strike.

  In response, on the morning of December 13, 1892, Frank Woolworth told his managers: “One store writes in that all their girls are on strike for higher wages. No doubt they take advantage now while we are so busy, and think we will pay the advance. All such girls you should remember when the dull season comes and give them the bounce.”

  Frank managed to quell the discontent and carried on. Things still didn’t change much for the girls, until one of Frank’s main men, Carson Peck, started to intervene. Woolworth greatly respected Peck, and so when Peck advised him to give the girls raises, and to offer vacation pay and bonuses to all his wage employees, then Frank complied. In 1899, Woolworth initiated the first Christmas bonuses: five dollars for each year of service with a limit of $25.00. The counter girls’ wages were increased to a minimum of $2.50 per week, with the most experienced earning a little more. But he was still stingy:

  “When a clerk gets so good she can get better wages elsewhere—let her go—for it does not require skilled and experienced salesladies to sell our goods,” he wrote. “You can get good, honest girls at from 2$ to $3 per week and I would not get $3.50 for any saleslady except in special cases. It may look hard to some of you to pay such small wages but there are lots of girls that live at home that are too proud to work in a factory or do housework. They are glad of the chance to get in a store for experience.”

  The counter girls from one Detroit, Michigan, store, 1930.

  The counter girls carried on, and their numbers increased steadily as the number of Red-Fronts in America also increased. By 1929, at the beginning of the Great Depression and ten years after Frank Woolworth had died, the F. W. Woolworth Co. employed more than 40,000 counter girls. Over the next few years, the current executives of Frank’s dynasty were faced with some of the largest counter girl strikes in the company’s history. Girls from New York City to the smallest Red-Fronts in Texas took a stand for higher wages. The most organized of these strikes occurred in the big cities, such as Chicago, New York, and Detroit. In 1937, 110 Detroit counter girls actually camped out in the Woolworth’s store for days, hoping that if they closed down the prosperous Red-Front, the company would better understand their request for higher wages, as well as their value. Some of the nation’s major newspapers made light of the situation; depicting the girls as if they were on holiday, “living in luxury” in the five-and-dime. But the girls ignored the ridicule and pursued their cause.

  The Famous Woolworth’s Counter Girl Strikes of 1937.

  In pursuit of higher wages, the employees took over the store for several days, requiring make-shift sleep accommodations.

  Eventually, the counter girls did win the battle for higher wages, but it wasn’t just because of their strikes. They won, in part, because of the negative publicity generated by Frank’s granddaughter, heiress Barbara Hutton. Back in 1930, at the lowest point in America’s history, Hutton had garnered the Woolworth’s girls’ hate when she held a multimillion dollar debutante ball in New York City. Outside, starving people formed bread lines and stared aghast at the flaunting of wealth and power of the famous Woolworth’s heiress. Hutton’s elaborate lifestyle continually made Society headlines, and the counter girls decided that if Barbara Hutton could get millions of dollars from the Woolworth dynasty, then they deserved a few dollars more in wages. In reality, Hutton’s father had sold off all his daughter’s Woolworth’s stock years before, but that didn’t matter. In the minds of the counter girls, Hutton had made millions because of her five-and-dime inheritance, and she became the poster child for their discontent. At Woolworth�
�s from the Pacific to the Atlantic, counter girls sang their theme song:

  TIME CAPSULE MEMORY

  “The Day John F. Kennedy Died”

  I was working Friday, November 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. It was very quiet in the usually bustling Woolworth’s store that night. The people who did come in looked like zombies. Their swollen red eyes, set in blank stares, matched their grimaces of shock. By the next week the store was well stocked with all kinds of pictures of our slain president for sale. Those pictures and memorabilia were replaced with music items, a few months later, right after the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show and Beatle-mania swept the nation.

  —Norma Jean Hissong

  Barbara Hutton has the dough, parlez vous.

  Where she gets it, sure we know, parlez vous

  We slave at Woolworth’s five-and-dime

  The pay we get sure is a crime

  Hinkey Dinkey parlez vous.

  The media pressure became so intense that the Woolworth Co. executives asked Barbara if she could leave the United States and return to one of her mansions in Europe, at least until the heat died down. With Hutton out of the country, they were finally able to retain order at their Red-Fronts. A reasonable wage agreement was finally reached, and the next era of the Woolworth’s counter girls began.

  During the 1950s, the individual counters of Woolworth’s five-and-dimes were replaced with self-service aisles. Former counter girls took on the new role of salesgirl and cashier. Their wages remained competitive throughout the history of the Woolworth Company. By 1954, audio-visual training methods were being used to teach basic business skills, and each long-term employee participated in Woolworth’s program of paid vacations, paid holidays, recognition of service events, and the company pension plan.

  Gradually, women began to move out of the ranks of cashiers and floorwalkers into management positions. However, straight through the 1970s there were no females employed in the higher executive levels. Fortunately, that began to change in the 1980s.

  Hundreds of thousands of employees have stories to share about their experiences with the F. W. Woolworth Company. Some, like Jonathan Hansen, worked only briefly as a stockboy, but since it was his first job he will never forget it. Nor will he forget the wonderful aromas of fresh popcorn and candy of his Maynard, Massachusetts, Red-Front. Other employees devoted half a century of service, making Woolworth’s part of their lives, as well as their careers. One of the most touching stories of all is the tale of “Sadie,” (see sidebar) who started working at a Woolworth’s in Pennsylvania in 1913, and remained there until the day in 1940 when that Red-Front went out of business.

  TIME CAPSULE MEMORY

  “How Many ‘Sadies’ Do You Remember?”

  by Chuck Wilkerson

  The year was 1960, and tucked away in a small mining town in northwestern Pennsylvania, the unpleasant task of closing a Woolworth’s 5&10 was in progress. The mood of employees and customers became increasingly sober as the business day drew to a close. The combined service of the store’s employees exceeded 250 years. Out of all these fine employees, one stood out because of her good work habits, the excellent upkeep of her assigned counters, and the service she provided to customers. But most of all, she stood out by the dress code she had maintained each and every day. The matronly lady arrived each day wearing a long black cotton dress that came down to her ankles and partially covered high-topped black shoes. She wore a white apron, and her hair was covered by a white ruffled dust bonnet. Before leaving for home each evening, she carefully covered her counters with unbleached muslin, to keep the merchandise free from dust. When asked why she wore what she did, the answer was briskly spoken: “This is what I was instructed to wear when I was hired 47 years ago, and no one has told me any different.” Sadie was hired at the tender age of fourteen, and not yet 62, she was too young for Social Security. Sadly, as of December 31, 1960, Sadie didn’t have any counters to cover anymore …”

  PART FOUR

  PRESERVING THE LEGACY

  Chapter Twelve

  The Collectibles!

  “Culture, in order to grow, must be fertilized. And it may well be that the glorious trash of the five-and-ten-cent stores played a large part in helping to build the Great American Dream.”

  —Anita Loos

  Reaching out to Five-and-Dime Infinity

  Like any other icon that has captured the popular fancy, F. W. Woolworth Co. has established a niche in the ever-expanding collectibles market. The very day in 1997 that the company announced the demise of its Red-Fronts, the prices on related five-and-dime memorabilia started to soar.

  That is not to imply that there wasn’t a healthy market prior to 1997. In fact, people have been buying and selling five-and-dime items for decades. Knick-knacks that once sold at dimestores For a handful of pennies now bring in hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars apiece. The difference is that the old “F. W. Woolworth,” logo, the mark of the most famous dimestore of all, will never again appear on new products. This makes those that are already out there even more valuable.

  The Woolworth’s collectibles market is presently in a state of flux, and will remain so for several more years until it becomes clearer just how much those Red-Front collectibles are worth in the open market. For that reason, you will not find exact price estimates here. It is also impossible to list all the Woolworth’s collectibles (that would require a separate book), but on the off chance that you are wondering if any of the dusty collectibles in your attic are worth money, this chapter is a good starting point, and will provide you with a general overview of the five-and-dime craze, with a focus on American Woolworth’s memorabilia.

  The best price references for general five-and-dime memorabilia remain established guides such as Kovels Antiques & Collectibles. There you can look up the value of everything from toy trains to colored perfume bottles, and begin your trek into five-and-dime collectibles. There are also several specialty volumes that can provide both insight and enjoyment into this unique era and its products. One of the most fascinating of these is Dime Store Days, by Lester Glassner and Brownie Harris (Penguin, 1981), which offers 128 pages of photos of everything from 1940s sunglasses to pressed-paper Santas—all gleaned from the dimestore merchandise.

  One of the first questions people often ask is: Which items are most valuable? When it comes to five-and-dime products, some of the most prized collectibles include pre-World War I German tree ornaments, first introduced in the United States by Frank Woolworth in 1890. Other high-ticket items include Bakelite products, pre-1950 Disney memorabilia, Plasticville toy sets, and Golden Age celebrity memorabilia like Joan Crawford publicity stills and Charlie McCarthy greeting cards. Novelty costume jewelry is also very popular, running the gamut from Carmen Miranda “banana” earrings to necklaces bearing the Batman Bat Signal logo. You can also find salt and pepper shakers, ash trays, perfume bottles, sugar bowls, and spoons that were issued in every conceivable color and style.

  If you are interested in military items, contemporary dealers are doing a brisk business in a large variety of World War I painted metal army nurses, World War II wind-up soldiers, Tokyo Rose movie memorabilia, and post-1950 plastic military figures. Paper war bonds are also popular with collectors; F. W. Woolworths was the first chain to start selling war bonds during World War II.

  The aforementioned products were available at most “five-and-tens” throughout the United States. Along with the established chain dimestores like Woolworth’s, there were thousands of small, independent “mom-and-pop” establishments selling sewing notions and trinkets for pocket change. However, given the fact that there were literally thousands of F. W. Woolworth stores, the majority of collectibles that surface in today’s market were originally purchased by patrons of the old Red-Fronts.

  Beneath the umbrella category of general “five-and-dime collectibles,” there are also distinct subdivisions. For example, some collectors prefer to acqui
re based on the individual five-and-ten company name itself. Therefore, along with Woolworth’s collectors, there are Kress, Newberry, and others. It is not unusual to find the paper price label reading “Woolworths 5¢” & “10¢”or “Knox 5¢” & “10¢” still on the item; naturally, this helps to identify the origin of the piece.

  This pair of early 1930s porcelain spoon rests still bear the original Woolworth’s 10¢ label.

  Traveling and fixed “museum” exhibits of such collectibles are becoming more commonplace as America moves away from the once expansive five-and-dime era. These exhibits are colorful and informative reminders of days gone by, and can be helpful in determining the value of that tiny china ring box or paper Halloween ghost that you’re been saving since you were a child.

  Woolworth’s Exclusives

  Among the F. W. Woolworth collecting specialists, there is always a popular demand for “Woolworth’s exclusives.” These exclusives take on four primary forms:

  The first encompasses products made specifically for the Woolworth Company, which were issued by Woolworth’s under the guise of a “brand” name. Such was the case with Woolco sewing notions and Herald Square typewriter ribbons. The Woolworth company itself never personally assumed the role of product manufacturer. Company executives (beginning with its ambitious founder) preferred to make deals with independent manufacturers, hiring them to make products to be sold only in Woolworth’s stores. This is a common practice now, but in the early part of the century it was a novel idea, one which Frank Woolworth capitalized on to a great degree. Woolworth brand-name exclusives can usually be identified by the presence of both said brand name (such as Herald Square) along with an accompanying red “W” logo printed somewhere on the products. In other cases, a line of typed print might read: “Only through F. W. Woolworth,” or “Sold exclusively through F. W. Woolworth.”