"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." [from Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=GtwuDwAAQBAJ]
Go to the following link to see an LNP newspaper article about Woolworth establishing his first successful store in Lancaster: https://goo.gl/f75cLZ
Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society ; v.99,no. 3
Summary
"Lancaster is a place where dreams become reality. A man with a vision, Frank Winfield Woolworth, could truthfully say that this thriving city...was the land of opportunity for him beginning in 1879. Life was not always easy for this young man. The first twenty-one years of Frank's life were living on farms with his younger borther, Charles Sumne, but the two intensely disliked farm work."
Includes bibliographical references (p. [241]-242) and index.
Contents
Nickel parakeets and grilled cheese: welcome to the world's most famous five-and-dime -- Early years of the merchant prince -- The birth of Woolworth's "great five-cent -store" -- Frank sires a million-dollar baby in Pennsylvania -- The march of "five-and-dimes" -- Reaching for the sky: the great Woolworth Building -- Woolworth's international -- Transition: from history to nostalgia -- Those fabulous lunch counters! -- A store for all seasons -- The spectacle of Woolworth's -- Woolworth's coast to coast -- The collectibles!
