It’s the autumn of 1880 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. A young businessman has recently opened a store and quickly finds success by offering high-quality goods at low prices. The store has become a popular destination for traveling salesmen.
One morning, a young traveling salesman from Germany enters the store and shows his goods to the proprietor, who isn’t impressed. “What purpose do they serve?” he asks. “They’re literally useless.” Still, the businessman decides to take a chance. He tells the salesman, “I’ll take one box, but only if they can be sold on a sale-or-return basis.”
The box is put on display, and within an hour, every item sells out. What were these products, and who was the man behind this moment of retail history? The man was F. W. Woolworth, and the products were Christmas tree ornaments.
Although ornaments had been sold before, they were often expensive and inaccessible to most people. Woolworths changed that by making them affordable and transforming how Christmas trees were decorated.
The following year, Woolworth traveled to Lauscha, Germany, where he placed an order for 100,000 sets of ornaments. Known as the birthplace of glass ornaments, Lauscha has been home to the world’s oldest blown glass ornament factory, operating since 1830.
Without Frank W. Woolworth, our holiday trees might still be bare.
Frank W. Woolworth opened his first successful five-and-dime store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1879, revolutionizing retail with his innovative approach to affordable, high-quality goods. His success quickly grew, and in 1899, he constructed Lancaster’s tallest building and first “skyscraper”—a magnificent five-story Victorian structure on North Queen Street shown in the picture above. This F.W. Woolworth store boasted a rooftop garden, offering a unique space for dining and entertainment. Woolworth’s vision reached new heights in 1913 when he commissioned the Woolworth Building in New York City, a stunning architectural marvel that became the tallest building in the world at the time.
This isn’t the only Christmas tradition born in southcentral Pennsylvania. Click here to read how America’s first documented Christmas tree was here in Lancaster County.
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All of our boxed ornaments came from Woolworth\’s when I was a little kid, my elder brothers too. I had some original boxes long, long ago, but Agnes took them all sadly. Some ornaments survived but one by one they disappeared. (cats, of course!)
Rebecca
To add to your article. Frank Woolworth went to Lauscha, Germany the next year and ordered 100,000 sets. Lauscha, Germany was the first and is the oldest blown glass ornament factory in the world. Since 1830.