"In the midst of failure to believe, I was being helped back to believing." James Cash Penney (yes, that was his full name) learned about faith and business from his father, who served as the pastor of a small Primitive Baptist church in Hamilton, Missouri, and struggled to make a living off the family farm.
JC Penney ran his company for more than four decades. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. Even so, Penney thought his stores could have done better as the Depression ground on.
In 1898, Penney went to work for Thomas Callahan and Guy Johnson, who owned dry goods stores called Golden Rule stores in Colorado and Wyoming. Callahan liked Penney’s honesty and strong work ethic.
Penney’s first job was clerking in a general store for a salary of $2.27 per month. For medical reasons he moved to Colorado in 1897 and was soon hired by local dry-goods merchants Guy Johnson and T.M. Callahan.
Penney graduated from Hamilton High School in 1893 but did not have the money for higher education. With the aid of his father he secured a position as a clerk in a local dry goods and clothing store.
J.C. Penney was founded on the Golden Rule which pretty much means treat your customer like you'd want to be treated.
95 years (1875–1971)James Cash Penney / Age at death
JCPenney revealed its new “Shopping is Back!” integrated brand campaign in conjunction with the company's 120th birthday. The campaign includes a new look in stores and online, special sales promotions, plus extra bonus rewards for reward members.
April 14, 1902, Kemmerer, WYJCPenney / FoundedOn April 14, 1902, founder Penney and two partners opened the Golden Rule dry-goods store in the small town of Kemmerer, Wyoming. During the following two years they opened stores in two other Wyoming frontier towns.
Simon Property GroupPenneyOpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is an American department store chain operating 669 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico....JCPenney.JCPenney store at Aventura Mall in 2006Total equityUS$829 million (2019)OwnersSimon Property Group, Brookfield Asset Management20 more rows
A small cardboard display at the JCPenney Eastpoint Mall store is shown on December 2, 2020. Battered and bruised, and with less stock on its shelves than in previous years, JCPenney is still alive. The recent purchase also provides the retail firm with $1.5 billion in much-needed funds.
Woodlawn Cemetery • Crematory • Conservancy, New York, NYJames Cash Penney / Place of burialWoodlawn Cemetery is one of the largest cemeteries in New York City and a designated National Historic Landmark. Located south of Woodlawn Heights, Bronx, New York City, it has the character of a rural cemetery. Wikipedia
We have over 650 department stores across the United States, and in each one you'll find savings on a wide selection of everyday essential for your whole family: clothing, shoes, jewelry, accessories, and more.
Kemmerer, WYJCPenney / Place foundedKemmerer is the largest city in and the county seat of Lincoln County, Wyoming, United States, with a population was 2,656 at the 2010 census. Wikipedia
In May 2013, jcpenney quietly introduced a new logo with the company name (still in Gotham) in lowercase. It was used alongside the 2012 logo in advertising. This logo was officially dropped in September that year due to an extremely negative response from customers, bringing back the 2008 logo.
The company was saddled with debt and spent the last decade with a continual turnover in CEOs, new store designs that couldn't spark interest, initiatives and rebrands that didn't resonate with customers. The once-beloved retailer has been unprofitable since 2010 with net losses of $4.5 billion.
Golden rule selling is focused on the customer and his needs, rather than being focused on the salesperson's desire to earn a commission.
After a career full of turbulence, James became manager of a Golden Rule store in Evanston, Wyoming. The stores traded in dry goods — grain, flour, beans; anything that wouldn't spoil. After a few years of success, Penney was offered his own store in Kemmerer, Wyoming, and took his shot.
Penney's store was successful because his customers liked the merchandise and good service. Within a year, Penney was managing two more stores. Soon, he had a one-third ownership in three stores in Wyoming.
J.C. Penney, in full James Cash Penney, (born Sept. 16, 1875, Hamilton, Mo., U.S.—died Feb. 12, 1971, New York, N.Y.), merchant who established one of the largest chains of department stores in the United States.
His father, the Reverend James Cash Penney, Sr., served as an unpaid preacher for a fundamentalist sect known as Primitive Baptists and farmed to earn a living. His mother, Mary Frances Paxton Penney, was a Kentuckian.
In 1903 he acquired one-third interest in another Golden Rule store, and a year later he supervised a third store in which he was sold a one-third interest. In 1907 Penney bought the other two-thirds interest in these three Golden Rule stores.
The chance to share in ownership increased his ambition, excited his imagination, and gave him the idea of someday having a chain of stores of his own based on the same principle of partner-owners who shared in the profits. He lived frugally in an attic room over the store at first.
The headquarters for the 48-store chain moved to New York City in 1914. Penney continued the expansion and in 1924 opened the 500th store in his hometown of Hamilton, Missouri. The company continued to operate as a partnership until 1927, when there were over 1, 000 stores, necessitating full incorporation.
A promising new opportunity came when Penney was employed by a Longmont, Colorado, merchant, T. M. Callahan, to work in Callahan's first store in his small Golden Rule Mercantile Company chain. In March 1899 Callahan sent the young man to work at his Evanston, Wyoming, store at a salary of $50 a month. Soon thereafter, on August 24, 1899, he ...
History of James Cash Penney’s first store. Website for the city of Kemmerer, Wyoming. Accessed March 30, 2011 at http://kemmerer.org/jcpenney
His father, James Cash Penney Sr., was a minister and civic leader who ran unsuccessfully for Congress on a populist ticket in 1894.
Five years later, it moved to New York City. After his death, the company settled in suburban Dallas. But in 1902, Wyoming had provided exactly what young Penney needed to found a chain that has survived, as of 2011, for 109 years – a tiny coal-mining town where the people wanted to buy what he had to sell.