8/27/2023 0 Comments Jcp online time clockNot far from the butcher shop was the busy Golden Rule Store, owned by fellow Missourians Tom and Alice Callahan. “A man who cannot make a mistake cannot make anything.” In a land far from home, he was on the street, alone. He cut off the whiskey, lost the customer, and the butcher shop failed, Jim losing all his savings in the process. For a while, Jim did this, then he realized his father would have never put up with the bribery. The man who sold him the butcher shop said he could hold onto this key customer as long as he bought the hotel manager a bottle of whiskey each week. Writing home for his $300 in savings, he bought a butcher shop in nearby Longmont. He increasingly realized that he wanted to own his own store. Jim could not tolerate the unfair practice and immediately quit. In his second job there, as a dry goods clerk, he discovered the merchant had a dual pricing system: high prices for those who could afford them, half price for those who could not. He arrived in Denver, then booming from mining on one side and farming on the other. With letters of recommendation in hand, the young man headed west toward the Rockies in the summer of 1897. He suggested Jim move west where the air was clearer and drier. When he was twenty-one, the family doctor noted that Jim was wearing down and risked getting the dreaded “consumption” (tuberculosis). ![]() The next year, Jim earned $200, and $300 in his third year-a luxurious $25 per month. He worked hard, learning the inventory and doing whatever tasks needed to be done, no matter how humbling. I like the way he has started out.” This inspired Jim for the rest of his life. That spring, his father died among his last words were, “Jim will make it. ![]() Hale dry goods store for $25-for eleven months work-just $2.27 per month. (Jim) Penney (middle) with his parents and siblings.Īt nineteen, Jim took a job at the J. But his father pointed out that those selling watermelons inside the fairgrounds had paid a concession fee, and insisted Jim stop competing unfairly. Later, the entrepreneurial young man sold watermelons outside the gates of the local fair. In one storekeeping job, Jim discovered the owner substituting cheap coffee into the container of a higher priced product: his father demanded that he quit. Reverend Penney worked hard to instill ethics in his son. In high school, he was a mediocre student but an outstanding orator, delivering uplifting messages about patriotism, Christianity, and the merits of hard work to his fellow students. At fifteen, he started working Saturdays in a local store and took a liking to storekeeping. Jim wasn’t happy, but went along with his father’s wishes. But when neighbors complained about the squealing noise, his father made him sell the pigs well before they were fattened for market. Jim then profitably raised and sold hogs. When he was between eight and ten years old, Reverend Penney told young “Jim” that he needed to earn money to contribute to the family’s limited coffers. His name lives on on over eight hundred stores across the United States EARLY LESSONS Above all else, at every stage of life he shared everything he had. Penney survived being widowed twice and losing almost all his wealth in the Great Depression, but continued leading, writing, teaching, and preaching until his death at the age of ninety-five. A man of strong Christian beliefs and upright morals, Reverend Penney later repeatedly ran for office on Populist tickets: he never won. His father was a less-than-prosperous Baptist preacher who also farmed. The boy was one of twelve children, only six of whom survived to adulthood. ![]() James Cash Penney, Jr., was born September 16, 1875, near Hamilton, Missouri, to the Reverend James C. From inauspicious beginnings rose one of the great entrepreneurs in American history, a man with unusual dedication and exceptionally high ideals.
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