$3.50 A Week — Then He Bought A Skyscraper In Cash

Frank W. Woolworth paid $13.5 million in cash for the tallest building in the world in 1913 — but where did his fortune actually come from, and who paid the real price for it? In this episode: • How a farm boy who grew up under his family's mortgage debt built a nationwide retail empire • The five business rules behind the "five-and-dime" fortune • The myth of the store display he supposedly invented — and what the record actually shows • Why he paid $13.5 million in cash for the Woolworth Building, and never took a loan • The wage economy his empire was built on — and what happened to his workers after he died This documentary is based on historical records, archival material, and published biographies (see sources below). All imagery is original illustration. Sources: Wikipedia (Frank Winfield Woolworth) · Woolworths Museum (woolworthsmuseum.co.uk) · Encyclopedia.com · Library of Congress, "This Month in Business History" · LAWCHA (Labor and Working-Class History Association) Frank W. Woolworth built one of the largest retail empires in American history from a $300 loan and a five-cent table he did not invent. This documentary traces the real, sourced story of the F.W. Woolworth Company: the direct-from-manufacturer buying model, the fixed-price system, and the self-service format that changed how Americans shop. It follows Woolworth from a mortgaged farm in Rodman, New York, through a failed first store in Utica, to a nationwide chain of nearly 600 stores by 1911 — and finally to the Woolworth Building, the tallest building in the world in 1913, paid for entirely in cash. Along the way, it examines the wage economy his stores were built on, the small shopkeepers priced out by his buying power, and what happened to his workforce decades after his death. Sources and further reading are listed above. #businesshistory #ragstoriches #documentary