Woolworth's Sold Everything for a Nickel. Here's Who Paid the Rest

For 118 years there was a Woolworth's on North Queen Street in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It opened on June 21, 1879, in a rented room fourteen feet wide where everything cost a nickel, and it closed in 1997 with every other Woolworth's left in America. This is the story of that five-and-dime and of who paid for the nickel: the clerks who started at a dollar fifty a week, the women who sat down in a Detroit store in 1937, the people refused a seat at the Greensboro lunch counter in 1960, and the 9,200 people let go in 1997. Hometown Almanac tells the everyday history of small-town America, from the records. The pictures are credited archive photographs and AI-assisted illustrations (labelled on screen). Old prices are also given in today's money, using the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis consumer price index. The F. W. Woolworth Co. of this story is the American chain; the companies using the name in Australia and South Africa are unrelated. 0:00 Frank Woolworth, the Clerk Who Couldn't Sell 3:51 1879: A Store Fourteen Feet Wide 6:36 What a Nickel Bought at the Five-and-Dime 9:26 The Woolworth Building, Paid in Cash 11:50 Inside a Five-and-Dime Store, 1952 14:50 The Woolworth Lunch Counter 17:44 Greensboro, February 1, 1960 20:47 1962: Woolco, Kmart and the Parking Lot 23:12 What Happened to the Five-and-Dime Stores 25:40 What Happened to Woolworth's: July 17, 1997 29:38 Is the Building Still on Your Main Street? Source link — Library of Congress: https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/20... Watch next — Sears catalog homes:    • Your Great-Grandparents Bought a House Fro...   Main sources: Minneapolis Fed CPI · Woolworth Co. 1979 · Woolworth report 1918 · Woolworth report 1929 · Woolworth report 1932 · Woolworth report 1937 · Woolworth report 1952 · Woolworth report 1960 · Woolworth report 1962 · Woolworth report 1963 · Woolworth report 1970 · Woolworth report 1977 · Woolworth report 1981 · Woolworth report 1982 · Woolworth report 1985 · Woolworth report 1992 · Woolworth report 1993 · Woolworth 10-K 1997 · Venator report 1998 · Woolworth release 1997 · Foot Locker 8-K 2025 · National Park Service · U.S. Women's Bureau 1930 · Census 1950 · Census Bureau · Smithsonian · Smithsonian 1996 · New York Times 1913 · New York Times 1919 · New York Times 1921 · Logan Republican 1918 · Peninsula Enterprise 1923 · Harvard casebook 1951 · Winkler and Sparkes 1940 · Greensboro Record 1960 · New York Times 1960 · NAACP 1960 · Time 1962 · UPI 1982 · Time 1983 · Roanoke Times 1993 · NPR 1993 · Motley Fool 1997 · St. Petersburg Times 1997 · Virginian-Pilot 1997 · LNP 2016 · LNP 2022 · LNP 2024 · LNP 2023 · LNP 2011 · Sunday News 2013 · LNP 2019 · Woolworths Museum · Reuther Library · Labor Notes 2013 (after Dana Frank) · Erik Loomis (after Dana Frank) · HistoryNet · UNC Greensboro · Stanford King Institute · NCpedia · N.C. A&T · NPR 2010 · Walmart · Target · Detroit Historical Society · Bakersfield Californian 2025 · Woolworth Walk · NYREJ 2012 · Woolworths Group · Forbes 1917 · Winkler 1940 · Library of Congress. #Woolworth #FiveAndDime #MainStreet #AmericanHistory