Charles Sumner Woolworth antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War, and worked to control the ex-Confederates so as to guarantee equal rights to the Freedmen. Charles Sumner Woolworth Charles Sumner Woolworth (August 1, 1856 – January 7, 1947), was an American entrepreneur who went by the nickname of "Sum", opened and managed the world's first five-and-dime store in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and was founder of the "C. S. Woolworth & Co" chain of 5¢ & 10¢ stores. Sum's brother, Frank Winfield Woolworth was first to venture into the retail business
Charles Sumner Woolworth do more of their shopping in newly built shopping centers, with large parking lots, Woolworth's added new stores in the shopping centers. On March 1, 1933, during the movement to boycott Jewish businesses in Germany, Nazi troops sang in front of the Berlin Woolworth Company store. The Hitlerites believed that the Woolworth brothers were Jewish. Yet, they were in fact, Methodist. There is some evidence that Hitler was very fond of Woolworth's stores, as it was one of the few businesses which Hitler did not nationalize. In 1932, the Woolworth Board of Directors was very concerned about their very successful