NICKELS AND DIMES

The Story of F. W. Woolworth"" by an experienced biographer for young people reads like the success pattern it follows- brightly- and with an outlook on the man and his times which reveals much of the late 19th century business world. He had his start on his father's New York state farm, then as an unpaid storehand in Watertown, and from a poor salesman became a skillful display man by allowing his customer to make his own selection. With idealism and a canny sense of finance as his tools, Woolworth was able to persuade his employer to back him and five and ten cent stores were opened in New York and Pennsylvania, gradually swept the country, and catapulted him into a world of high finance. Though Woolworth, and his world, are idealized here- with little real feeling for personality, this nevertheless has its tributary value.