Supermarket: One of the Most Important (and least known) American Inventions of All Time
This Sunday, August 4, is the 89th anniversary of a huge innovation with a global, lasting impact – the supermarket. On August 4, 1930, Michael Cullen opened his “huge” King Kullen store in the Jamaica section of Queens, New York City.While this date is often...
The Bookstop Story by co-founder Gary Hoover
I started collecting books by the time I was 8 years old, starting with a Rand McNally world atlas. I think it cost $1, and I still have it. My addiction has led me to live with my 57,000 books in an odd old commercial building in a small historic Texas town, where...Covering Retailing on Wall Street at Citibank 1973-1975
I fell in love with retailing by the time I was 13. After studying economics in college at the University of Chicago, I wanted to become a securities analyst covering the retail industry on Wall Street (which of course means the industry, not necessarily on that...
Payless Shoe Source: History with the May Department Stores Company
With the final collapse of Payless Shoes in February 2019, I figured I better record a bit of their history as I know it. In my 5 years at May Department Stores’ corporate headquarters in St. Louis from 1977 to 1981, I evolved to become the “strategic...
Can Companies Really Reinvent Themselves? The Lessons of Target
Originally published on Hooversworld.com on Aug 2, 2016. Much has been written about the idea of “reinventing” your company. However, in my 50+ years of studying big business, I have rarely seen it happen — successfully. Here, from the treasure...
The Corporate Giant Whose History Almost Nobody Knows
Originally Published on Hooversworld.com on May 22, 2018 Who would have guessed that a medium-sized retailer which never put its name on a store would evolve to become the 7th largest company in America, a place where millions of Americans shop every day? My first job...
J. C. Penney, the Man: A Life of Perpetual Sharing
This article first appeared on December 7, 2017 in The Archbridge Institute’s ‘American Originals’ series. From inauspicious beginnings rose one of the great entrepreneurs in American history, a man with unusual dedication and exceptionally high...
Robert Brooker: Unsung Warrior in One of the Greatest Battles in Business
This article first appeared on October 11, 2017 on Hooversworld.com. “Far greater it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered with failure…than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live...US Retailing Industry History
...Support Us
You can also support the American Business History Center through the Amazon Smile program, which will give us 0.5% of the value of your purchases on Amazon without costing you anything additional.
