Charles Sumner Woolworth managers, brightly lit stores, and frequently-changed window displays to lure customers inside. In 1912 C. S. Woolworth & Co, with the other affiliated chains, merged 596 stores under the corporate name "F. W. Woolworth Company". After the death of his brother, Frank Winfield Woolworth, Charles Sumner Woolworth became the reluctant Chairman of the Board of F. W. Woolworth Company (now Foot Locker), for 25 years. As a philanthropist and business man, he was involved with several institutions and businesses in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and other areas. Charles Sumner Woolworth, known by everyone as Sum, was born on August 1, 1856, in
Frank Winfield Woolworth after his mother's death that Woolworth's trademark concept of the 5-and-10 Cent store, or the "Five-and-Dime," was developed. Accounts on the conception of the five-and-dime differ. Scholar Gail Fenske suggests that Woolworth had heard of a "five-cent counter craze" while questioning his own sales ability at his first job. Jean Maddern Pitrone suggests the idea was conceived after a travelling salesman told Woolworth of stores with the five-cent counter concept in Michigan. Plunkett-Powell suggests the concept was overheard by Woolworth during a discussion between William Moore and a young man who had opened his own cut-rate goods store. Regardless of