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Introducing the Museum
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Introducing the Woolworths Museum
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Commercial and media use of our images, media and storylines
Legal information about the Museum
Meet the site's author
Bibliography
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Quick Reference Guides
Interactive multimedia timeline
One page history for screens and phones
One page history to download and keep, print or share
Price inflation
Store lists
Date Galleries
The story begins
Introducing the Woolworth brothers
Birthplace of the 5 & 10¢ Store
The first 5¢ cent table
A salutary lesson
Ground Zero - Lancaster 1879
The Friendly Rivals
European Buying
US Expansion:
Woolworth's first skyscraper
Conquering the cities
US flotation in 1905
UK beginnings
Choosing a location
Financing and setting up the Company
Join us on opening day in Liverpool
USA The Sky's the Limit
The 1912 $65m merger
The world's tallest buidling
The World War and its Consequences
The effects of war in Europe
Working for F.W. Woolworth in the 1910s
The Great War in Postcards
Replacing Frank Woolworth
Revolution in Britain and Ireland's High Streets
6 stores across Northern England
The first openings in London
The 44 pre-war pioneers
Impact on British shopping
20s overview
The Property Department
Visit a 1920s store
Opening programme
Supplier partnerships
Woolies' first records
Community Work
"The Girl from Woolworths" movie
Woolworth Wedding song
50th birthday in the USA
Down under and the sincerest form of flattery
FWW GmbH of Berlin, Germany
Openings transform the High Street
Stock Market Flotation
Buying ingenuity
Working in a 30s store
Woolies' first character items
Keeping prices under 6D
Eclipse & Crown records
Woolies' first Ladybird items
Royalty and Empire
"New Bond" staff magazine
First catalogues
Restaurant & Tea Bar
Rumblings of war
A world apart in 1939/40
Fire from the sky as British and German Cities face the Blitz
Woolworth staff buy two Spitfires for the RAF
Channel Islands Occupation
Rationing and Price Rises
Home front defiance
FWW UK becomes a D-Day 'home from home'
V1 and V2 Rockets and the Darkest Hour
Reconstruction and austerity
Grand re-openings
H.M. Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation
The mobile shop
Interactive Fifties Store
Embassy Records cover story
Digital Jukebox
Advent of self-service
Commonwealth Openings
Zimbabwe Album
Caribbean Album
Fiftieth birthday celebrations
A warning from the USA
What's on TV?
Sixties Overview
Woolworth goes out of town with Woolco
Woolco Picture Gallery
Winfield own brand launch
City Centre Superstores
Food for thought
Computerisation and Central Distribution
Hits of the Sixties
Embassy Jukebox
Race and Space in the USA
Working conditions
Decimalisation - counting the cost
Hypermarkets and Supermarkets
The Wonder of Woolworth campaigns
View ads from defining 70s campaign
Catalogue Shopping
Carelessness Causes Fire
PR and the world outside
Strategy for the 80s
Brascan's hostile takeover bid in the USA
100 Years in Main Street USA and Canada
Distribution Infrastructure
New product development
Music on a Budget
70's Juke Box
Acquisition of B&Q by F.W. Woolworth & Co. Ltd.
'21st Century Shopping', Concept Store
Paternoster Takeover
Parent Company Decline
Asset redistribution
Exit from Ireland
The Cornerstone Business Strategy
Dixons Takeover Bid Fails
Launch of The Video Collection
Video Trailer
Focus Strategy
Launch of exclusive Ladybird licence
Chad Valley toys launch
Working for Woolies in the Kingfisher Years (1982-2001)
Turnaround Team Video
The Lighter Side of the Eighties at Woolworths
Limited Story Stores with more specialist ranges
A Standalone Ladybird store - picture gallery
Visit a 1990s Woolies
New technology and EPOS
Profits bath in 1994
Spectacular £100m profits in 1997
Talks about talks
American Woolworth "retires" after 118 years
Asda merger fails
Big W
Woolworths Direct
90s People
Keith The Alien brand advertising character
The Lighter Side of the 90s
What Millennium Bug?
2000s Overview
Death by Demerger
New values and a new direction
Visit a new-look Woolworths Out-of-Town, as it opened in 2005
Market Towns and City Centres
The Smaller Stores
Multi-Channel Retail
Wholesale & Media
WorthIt! Value Comeback
Launch of the Virtual Museum
Meet the team
The Lighter Side
Wooly & Worth
Collapse and Rescue
The Main Woolworth Product Ranges
Yankee Doodle Candy
Tuppence a Quarter
Visit a 1930s Sweet Factory
Rationing in World War II
New brands and lines for the Fifties
Building a legend
Europe's biggest sweet shop
Candy Kings?
Woolworth's - the Good Ship Lollipop
Our great grandparents' toys
It's magic
Character brands
Just window dressing
The Lion and Albert
Wartime Toys
1950s Toys
Mum & dad's toys
The race for space
Cool for School
Woolies by Woolies at Woolies
80s and 90s Toys
Wooly and Worth
Kids and Celebrations
Century of Toys Video
Chad Valley A Woolies brand from 1988 to 2009, now owned by Argos
Toys for Toffs, the early ranges
TV changes everything in the 1950s and 1960s
Music and video overview
A Woolworth Wedding
The Girl from Woolworths
First Records
Little Wonder label
Little Marvel label
Mimosa label
The Victory label
Eclipse label
Crown Records
Making 78 rpm records in the 1930s
Royal Jubilee 1935
Royal Coronation of H. M. Queen Elizabeth II 1953
Embassy Records in the 1950s
1950s Juke Box
1960s Embassy
1960s Embassy Juke Box
1970s music on a budget
1970s Juke Box
Pre-recorded video
Hundred Up
Fashion overview (1909-2009)
Make it yourself patterns and thread
Birth of the Ladybird Legend
The first Ladybird items
History of the Ladybird Company
Building fashion sales (1950-80)
Launch of Ladybird at Woolies
Kids and Celebrations In-Store
The Easter Parade
The History of China and Glass at Woolworth
Thrift and economy - DIY at FWW
Leading Lights
Blooming good - seeds, bulbs and plants
Pan-o-rama
The lost departments
On Paper - 100 years overview
Early US and UK stationery items
World War One cards
The cards our grandparents sent
P-p-p-pick up a Penguin (originally at Woolies)
Picture Histories - all time best seller
World War II Mighty Midgets
Launch of the Biro
Project Books
1980s and 1990s
21st Century
One very special book
A Century of Decorations
Cards and Wrap
A window on Christmas past
Jukebox
Christmas Catalogues
Advertising
The Last Noel
Woolworths People, Careers and Working Conditions
Biographies of the American 5¢ & 10¢ Store Founders
Frank W. Woolworth
Charles ("Sum") Woolworth
Jennie Woolworth
Barbara Hutton
Earl P. Charlton
Fred M. Kirby
Seymour H. Knox
William H. Moore
Biographies of the British 3D & 6D Store Founders
Fred M. Woolworth
William L. Stephenson
Byron D. Miller
Charles H. Hubbard
John B. Snow
The Yankee Boys
Working for 'FWW'
1910s in-store
The Architects and Builders
A day in the life of a Sales Assistant (Clerk) in the 1930s, in words and pictures
Unique social history from Woolworth's Staff Magazine
WW II Home Front
British Golden Jubilee Celebrations in 1959
UK Commonwealth
Updated working conditions after 1960
In-store
Computerised Centralised Accounting, Distribution and Administration
From Rail to Road, adapting the Supply Chain for new ranges and ways of working
Eighties & Nineties
Face time
Eighties people
Nineties people
The naughty noughties
Honouring The Fallen
Great War memorial
WW II memorial
New Cross remembered
After hours
1920s Charity and Community Work
1980s Fun & Frolics
1990s community projects
2000s Putting Kids First
World Class Multimedia
Digital Gramophones, Juke Boxes and Song Players
Listen to digitally restored Sixpenny 78rpm Gramophone Records
1910s Little Wonder
1920s Discs by Little Marvel®, The Mimosa® and The Victory&rreg;
1930s Eclipse® & Crown® Records
Fifties, Sixties and Seventies Jukeboxes
1950s Embassy 78 rpm
1960s 33rpm Embassy Albums and Extended-Play 45 rpm Singles
1970s Chevron Cassettes and Coloured Vinyl Records
Digital Downloads celebrating ninety-nine Christmases at the Heart of the High Street
A Century of Xmas Music
Image Galleries, with optional captions and contemporary music
A Century to Celebrate
Early 5 & 10¢ Stores
Nix over Six, 3D & 6D Stores
Finest Hour in World War II
That's the Wonder of Woolworth
Just a little bit of history repeating
Huge Woolco out of town stores - closed by Kingfisher after twenty years as a bad idea
Huge Big W out of town stores - opened by Kingfisher twenty years later as a good idea
Catalogue Shops - closed as loss-making
Woolworths Direct Catalogue - launched by the same people as a good idea a decade later
The Red Book, Woolworths Direct all over again!
Movie Theatre
Enter the Virtual Cinema
Choose a free movie ticket at our Box Office
For Fun
Pub Quiz Questions
Pub Quiz Answers
Multimedia Interatcive Pub Quiz
The Price is Right
1910s Price Quiz
1920s Price Quiz
1930s Price Quiz
Post-WWII Price Quiz
1950s Price Quiz
1960s Price Quiz
1970s Price Quiz
More recent prices...
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Woolworth Germany
Red Apple/TBS Canada
South African Woolworths
Mexican Woolworth
Woolworth Barbados
Australian Woolworths
New Zealand Woolworths
Museum Gift Shop
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