Download e-book for kindle: J. C. Penney: The Man, the Store, and American Agriculture by David Delbert Kruger

What is now known as JCPenney, a fixture of suburban procuring department shops, began as a small-town major road shop that fused its founder’s pursuits in agriculture, retail enterprise, faith, and philanthropy. This book—at as soon as a biography of Missouri farm boy–turned–business icon James money Penney and the tale of the corporate he began in 1902—brings to mild the little-known agrarian roots of an American division shop chain. David Delbert Kruger explores how the corporate, its shops, and their well-known founder formed rural the USA during the 20th century.

“Most of our stores,” Penney defined in 1931, “are situated in agricultural areas the place the tide of promoting rises and falls with the prosperity of the farmers.” regardless of the expansion of towns within the early 20th century, Penney maintained his shops’ dedication to serving the desires of farmers and small-town folks. Tracing this commitment to Penney’s rural upbringing, Kruger describes how, from one shop within the sheep-ranching and mining city of Kemmerer, Wyoming, J. C. Penney Co. grew to become a well-known chain on major highway, united states, purveying price, offering stable jobs, and staining rites of passage in lots of an American childhood.

Kruger paints a biographical and historic photo of an American company multi-millionaire highly varied from related capitalists similar to Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, or Sam Walton. regardless of his chain’s company constitution, Penney imbued each one shop with a Golden Rule philosophy that demanded mutual recognize among buyers, staff, rivals, providers, and groups. through tracing that spirit to its agrarian resource, and following it throughout the 20th century, J. C. Penney: the guy, the shop, and American Agriculture presents a brand new viewpoint in this American cultural institution—and on its founder’s exact model of yankee capitalism.