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F. W. Woolworth Company

The F. W. Woolworth Company (often referred to as Woolworth's or simply Woolworth) was a retail company and one of the pioneers of the five-and-dime store. It was among the most successful American and international five-and-dime businesses, setting trends and creating the modern retail model that stores follow worldwide today.

This article is about the company now known as Foot Locker. For companies, related or not, that are similarly named, see Woolworth.

Trade name

Woolworth's or Woolworth & Co

Public

NYSE: Z (1912–1997)

Retail

February 22, 1879 (1879-02-22)
Utica, New York, United States

Frank Winfield Woolworth (President)

July 1997 (1997-07)
(said division only)

Department stores closed. Name changed in 1997 to Venator Group, and in 2001 to Foot Locker

Foot Locker (1974–present)

Woolworth Building, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

F.W. Woolworth (Founder/CEO)
Charles Woolworth (Chairman)

Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, consumer electronics and housewares

Independent

Woolworth Corporation, LLC.

Woolworths Group
F. W. Woolworth Ireland
Woolworth Canada
Woolworth GmbH
Woolworth Mexicana
Kinney Shoe Company
Woolco
Woolworth Athletic Group
Richman Brothers

The first Woolworth store was opened by Frank Winfield Woolworth on February 22, 1879, as "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store" in Utica, New York. Though it initially appeared to be successful, the store soon failed.[1] When Woolworth searched for a new location, a friend suggested Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Using the sign from the Utica store, Woolworth opened his first successful "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store" on June 21, 1879, in Lancaster. He brought his brother, Charles Sumner Woolworth, into the business.


The two Woolworth brothers pioneered and developed merchandising, direct purchasing, sales, and customer service practices commonly used today. Despite its 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, while its sporting goods division grew.


The chain went out of business in July 1997, when the company decided to focus primarily on sporting goods and renamed itself Venator Group. By 2001, the company focused exclusively on the sporting goods market, changing its name to the current Foot Locker, Inc., changing its ticker symbol from its familiar Z in 2003 to its present ticker (NYSE: FL).


Retail chains using the Woolworth name survived in Austria, Germany, Mexico and the United Kingdom as of early 2009. The similarly named Woolworths supermarkets in Australia and New Zealand are operated by Australia's largest retail company, Woolworths Group, a separate company with no historical links to the F. W. Woolworth Company or Foot Locker, Inc.


However, Woolworths Limited did take their name from the original company, as it had not been registered or trademarked in Australia at the time.[2] Similarly, in South Africa, Woolworths Holdings Limited operates a Marks & Spencer-like store and uses the Woolworth name, but has never had any connection with the American company. The property development company Woolworth Group in Cyprus began life as an offshoot of the British Woolworth's company, originally operating Woolworth's department stores in Cyprus. In 2003, these stores were rebranded Debenhams, but the commercial property arm of the business retained the Woolworth's name.

Woolworth was the pioneer of "five-and-dime"-style retailing.

[16]

In 1880, Woolworth first sold manufactured Christmas tree ornaments, which proved extremely popular.

[17]

In 1929, in , Sam Foster (founder of Foster Grant eyewear) sold sunglasses from his counter in Woolworth's on the city's famous boardwalk, which became a great hit with the sunbathing public.[18]

Atlantic City, New Jersey

founder of the Terrytoons Cartoon Studio, once said "Let Walt Disney be the Tiffany's, I want to be the Woolworth's".

Paul Terry

On February 1, 1960, four African-American students from (NC A&T) started the Greensboro sit-ins at a "whites only" lunch counter in the Greensboro, North Carolina store. (The store is now a museum.)

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

On February 27, 1960, in , an integrated student-led movement from nearby black colleges, including Fisk University, American Baptist College, and Tennessee A&I (now Tennessee State), drew more than 200 protestors to the lunch counters at Woolworth, Kress, McClellan, and Walgreens across the street, resulting in national media attention after the students' nonviolent tactics were met with violent backlash from white citizens. Among the protestors arrested was future US Congressman John Lewis, who participated in the sit-in at the lunch counter at Woolworth. The building functioned as a diner, Woolworth's on Fifth, for several years after the original store's closing and is now being converted into an entertainment theater.[19]

Nashville,Tennessee

On May 28, 1963, 14 activists – including chaplain, Reverend Ed King and professors John Salter Jr. and Lois Chaffee (who were white), and students Pearlena Lewis, Anne Moody (who later published Coming of Age in Mississippi), and Memphis Norman (who were black), and Joan Trumpauer (who was white) – protested Jim Crow segregation via a sit-in at Woolworth's "whites only" lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi.[20][21] Bill Minor, then the Mississippi correspondent covering civil rights events for the New Orleans Times-Picayune and who was there that day, says the Jackson Woolworth's sit-in was "the signature event of the protest movement in Jackson. The first one there was with real violence." The following year, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed into law.[22]

Tougaloo College

In 1976, memorably called his look, "a cross between Nijinsky and Woolworth's."[23]

David Bowie

On folk singer 's 1988 live album, One Fair Summer Evening, the song "Love at the Five and Dime" includes an extended introduction that reminisces about Woolworth stores.

Nanci Griffith

A memorable scene in the Coen brothers' 2000 film , set in rural Mississippi in 1937, entails George Clooney's character being physically thrown out of an F.W. Woolworth Co. store and admonished by the manager, "And stay out o' the Woolsworth!"[24][25]

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Following Woolworth's dissolution, a Woolworth's building remained in operation (albeit as an antique store) in , and included a diner with similar offerings of the former brand. Both the store and diner closed indefinitely in 2022 for renovations following a sale of the building; as of 2024, there is no set re-open date. [26][27][28]

Bakersfield, California

The 2nd season of featured a character named Murray Woolworth, played by Ed Sahely, who ran a variety store called Murray's Variety, where he always sold useless junk and faulty inventions and devices, enforced a strict "no return-no refunds-no exchange" policy, and was constantly scheming ways to cheat Lodge members out of their money as a result of his shady and unethical business practices.

The Red Green Show

(founded in 1927), the German unit of F.W. Woolworth has operated independently since 1998; it owns the rights of the Woolworth trademark in continental Europe, and in 2021 acquired the British Woolworths brand.

Deutsche Woolworth GmbH & Company OHG

operates a chain of small variety stores in Mexico, sold in December 1997 to Control Dinamico S.A. by Foot Locker Inc[40] and is now a subsidiary of Grupo Comercial Control, S.A. de C.V.[41]

Woolworth Mexicana

List of Woolworth buildings

F. W. Woolworth Co. v. Contemporary Arts, Inc.

Winkler, John K. Five and Ten--The Fabulous Life of F. W. Woolworth (1940)