Portrait of Frank Winfield Woolworth

Birthday profile

Frank Winfield Woolworth

Frank Winfield Woolworth, American businessman, founded the F. W. Woolworth Company (died 1919)

Born
April 13, 1852
Died
April 8, 1919
Zodiac sign
Aries
Birth year
1852

About Frank Winfield Woolworth

Frank Winfield Woolworth was an American entrepreneur, the founder of F. W. Woolworth Company, and the operator of variety stores known as "Five-and-Dimes" which featured a selection of low-priced merchandise. He pioneered the now-common practices of buying merchandise directly from manufacturers and fixing the selling prices on items, rather than haggling. He was also the first to use self-service display cases, so that customers could examine what they wanted to buy without the help of a sales clerk. Gail Fenske suggests that Woolworth had heard of a "five-cent counter craze" while questioning his own sales ability at his first job.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Frank Winfield Woolworth was born

Frank Winfield Woolworth was born in 1852. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1852

  • Best-selling bookUncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineNapoleon III becomes Emperor of France
  • Technology milestoneFirst public flushing toilet opens in London
  • World population~1.32B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderMillard Fillmore
  • U.S. population24.4M

1852 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Frank Winfield Woolworth's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18522026
Population24.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.