50th birthday celebrations in America
       
1929 marked the fiftieth birthday of the American Company, which opened up shop on June 21st, 1879.  A number of special events were arranged to mark the occasion, including a company history book which was given away to customers, a Home Shopping Booklet to help customers make their selections at home, showing them how much the range had grown, and an extensive advertising campaign to drive extra business into the stores.  Shareholders and executives were also treated to a special celebration meal after the Annual General Meeting in Watertown New York.

By 1929 most stores were already selling 15 cent lines to supplement their 5 and 10 cent lines, while the British company was so successful they never introduced the equivalent nine penny (3.75p) line.  The advertising campaign skipped over this detail, consistently referring to the company as the 5 & 10.  The following year fixed pricing was abandoned in America altogether.
       
50th birthday booklet      
The 50th Anniversary booklet from Woolworths was given out free to customers in 1929 The 50 Years of Woolworth booklet outlines the early history of the Company right from the very first store, through the early openings to the $65 million merger in 1912.  It introduces all of the key characters - both the founders and the executives in office for the birthday.

It also explains the modern range, giving details of some of the items stocked and the quantities sold.

Vital statistics 1929

  • total annual sales in the US and Canada $272,754,045
  • 11,000 bales of cotton used to weave towels alone, with 2,000 looms working 24 hours a day and employing 1,000 people
  • over a million mousetraps sold every year
  • 100,000,000 shaves with Woolworths blades during 1929
  • over 1,000,000 nets and 5,000,000 printed curtains sold
  • 7,500,000 tons of yarn used to make men's socks
  • 90,000,000 lunches served to customers during the year
  • 4,000 miles of pencils if laid end to end and 300 miles of pen points
  • 33,000 miles of garter elastic
 Reverse of the 50th Anniversary booklet from Woolworths, which was given out free to customers in 1929
The Woolworths Secret      

The "Diamond W" motif was designed by Frank Woolworth on a voyage to Europe. It was the Company's trademark for more than 80 years

 Under the heading "How Does Woolworth Do It?", the booklet goes some way to explain the Woolworth formula.  According to the article it's all to do with wholesale buying.  The company didn't have any factories and manufacture anything but they gave orders of tremendous size to get the lowest possible price.  At the time the company made extra savings by having their own "assembly plants" for components in Paris, France and Sonneberg, Germany.
       
The centrefold from the 50th birthday booklet, celebrates the buying power that Woolworths gave to the small coins of the world.

Overseas expansion

The booklet celebrates the company's overseas expansion.  As well as the United States and Canada, by 1929 Woolworths had stores in Cuba, Great Britain, Eire, and Germany, as well as a European buying office in Paris.

At the time there were already stores trading in Australia and New Zealand called F. W. Woolworth & Co, but this was a copycat company, which never had any link to mainstream Woolworths.  Today the Antipodean Woolworths is the largest supermarket chain down under.
       
An artist's impression of the F. W. Woolworth store in Oxford Street, London, W1, which opened in 1924. An artist's impresion of the F. W. Woolworth stroe in Berlin, which opened in 1928.
       
Home Shopping Booklet   The Woolworth Home Shopping Guide (effectively a product list) was given away to customers along with the 50th Anniversary booklet.
The Home Shopping Guide was distributed alongside the 50th Birthday Booklet, to highlight the wide range of items available in a Woolworth store and to help customers to make a shopping list at home.  While American in origin, comparable British-sourced items were available in stores in the UK and Eire.
The reverse of the Woolworths Home Shopping Guide, 1929 The ranges described in the booklet are:
  • for women and girls
  • for your toilet table
  • for your garden
  • for home decoration

 

 
  • for your sewing
  • pure candy
  • for picnics
  • for your table
  • for your children

 
  • for school
  • for the bathroom
  • for men
  • for Christmas and other holidays

 
An example spread from the Woolworths Home Shopping brochure from 1929.
 

view more pages from this booklet
       
1929 Advertising Campaign    
       
The American company booked advertising space in most major magazines and periodicals in May 1929 to promote the company's 50th anniversary sale.  Each advertisement consisted of a number of full pages, each describing a different part of the range, with most focusing on one or two key suppliers (who contributed towards the costs).  The pages were targeted to the individual publication - for example the advertisement in the Women's Home Companion focuses heavily on articles for the home and housewife - net curtains, ladies hosiery, jewellery, kitchenwares and sewing.
       

Woolworths took out a large spread in several magazines and periodically to celebrate their 50th birthday. This one came from the over-sized Ladies Home Journal
       

1920s Gallery Home

20s overview: stepping up the pace   Visit a 1920s store  
Rapid expansion -  an opening every 17 days   Supplier partnerships and product development
The first gramophone records   Play the Little Marvel record "What'll you do"  
Woolies in the community    Alice White in "The Girl from Woolworths"
Sixpenny pops "We'll have a Woolworth Wedding"
50th birthday of the American Woolworth
Price quiz - dateline 1929