Michelle Condon
"I would never have amounted to anything were it not for adversity. I was forced to come up the hard way." "I am grateful for all my problems. After each one was overcome, I became stronger and more able to meet those that were still to come. I grew in all my difficulties." These are two quotes made by James Cash Penney from a web site entitled Great quotes to inspire, empower and motivate you to live the life of your dreams and become the person you've always wanted to be! James Cash Penney, the founder of the JCPenney Company, lived his life and ran his business by principles of the Golden Rule. Penney's success with the JCPenney Company was made possible by doing business according to God's Word, in good times and in bad. In fact, Penney decided to base this business on the words of Jesus: "In everything do unto others as what you would have them do unto you." He also promised to run this business using Christian ethics.
Penney's Family
James Cash Penney was born on September 16, 1875 on a small farm outside Hamilton, Missouri. Penney's father was a poor farmer and primitive Baptist minister, and his mother, Mary Frances Penney, was a devout woman born of a genteel Southern family. Penney's parents came from Kentucky to farm and teach their faith. Only half of Penney's siblings lived to their adulthood. Penney was brought up to believe in God, self-reliance, self-discipline, honor, and the Christian ethic of the Golden Rule.
Penney married Berta Hess in 1899 in Cheyenne, Wyoming. They had two sons together. After eleven years of marriage in December of 1910, Berta fell ill with pneumonia. She died on December 26, 1910. Penney donated $10,000 in memory of Berta to the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, Utah. After the death of Berta, he married Mary Hortense Kimball in 1916, whom he met on a trip to the Holy Land in 1916. They had one son together named Kimball. Tragically, Mary died suddenly in 1924. He again donated to the memory of his wife. This time he established the JCPenney foundation in Mary's memory, helping adoption agencies, homeless shelters, youth clubs, vocational schools, libraries, family guidance centers, missionary projects, peace organizations, and health clinics. He also established Penney farms where destitute farmers could live and work until they could rebuild their lives. After the death of Mary, he married Caroline Marie Autenreith. They had two daughters together named Mary Frances and Carol Marie. This marriage lasted for 45 years until the death of James Cash Penney.
Penney raised livestock during the 1920s and1930s. In fact, he gained an international reputation for raising such animals as: Guernsey, Hereford, and Black Angus cattle, and purebred stallions and mules. He also sold valuable stock at prices well below the market value to farmers he felt had good character.
Penney as an Entrepreneur
When Penney was eight years old, his father told him that he should start to assume responsibility for purchasing his own clothes. So, he ran errands, collected and sold junk, and worked on fields to earn sufficient money to buy that pair of shoes that he needed. Then by the age of ten, Penney started raising pigs. His neighbors complained about the smell of the pigs, so Penney sold the pigs and made sixty dollars profit. Hence, his career in business began.
James Cash Penney held several jobs after he graduated high school in Hamilton. At the age of 20, he was apprenticed as a local storekeeper. By the end of the first year there, he ranked third in sales. He then moved to Denver, Colorado in 1897 for health-related reasons and worked for Joslin's Dry Goods Store as a store clerk. One year later, he opened a butcher shop in Longmont on Main Street. The biggest customer of this shop was a local hotel. When the hotel's meat cutter demanded a bottle of whiskey weekly as a bribe, Penney gave-in to this bribe only once. After that, he regretted giving-in to that bribe, and from then on, refused the bribe. Unfortunately, Penney's butcher shop failed because this hotel withdrew its business.
The JCPenney Company
In 1898, he started to work for Guy Johnson and Thomas M. Callahan in Longmont, Colorado. These men owned and operated dry-goods stores called Golden Rule Stores in Colorado and Wyoming. The partners opened a new store and decided to offer Penney an opportunity to be a third partner in the new store. Penney took the offer and was sent by train to Kemmerer, Wyoming. Kemmerer was a scattered mining community that had 1000 residents, a company store that operated on credit, and 21 saloons. Penney developed two revolutionary ideas that were a basis for his new business venture there. The first was cash only; the second was "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Furthermore, Penney's middle name, Cash, is a family name, not an indication of his first revolutionary idea: cash only.
On April 14, 1902, his partners, Callahan and Johnson, helped him open a new Golden Rule dry goods store in Kemmerer, Wyoming at the age of 26. The sales for the first day totaled $466.59 and for the first year totaled $28,898.11. Soon Penney and partners opened two more stores in Wyoming. One was in Rock Springs; the other was in Cumberland. Penney developed a system for the management of each store: the new associates were taught business and given financial interest in the stores. In fact, Penney insisted that:
The Penney Idea is from the JCPenney web site. The company's motto was also declared at this time as "Honor, Confidence, Service, and Cooperation." By 1917, at age 42, Penney accepted the position of chairman with 197 stores.
By 1928, with over 1000 stores, sales had totaled $176.7 million. In October of 1929, a few days before Black Thursday, JCPenney shares were listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Unfortunately, the stock market crashed, and Penney personally lost $40 million. Nevertheless, the number of JCPenney stores continued to increase during this time. Also, the store's low-priced merchandise attracted customers in these hard times.
During the 1920s, Penney spoke to local clubs, civic groups, and churches while he engaged in a regular schedule of store visits, Company conventions, and speaking arrangements. Associates of the JCPenney stores remembered Penney's visits fondly. It was an honor to see the founder in-person as he visited as many stores as he could.
Penney's Charity
Penney continually donated to charity. He donated to the Christian Herald and a home for retired clergymen. He accumulated personal debts of over $7 million. By 1932, James Cash Penney had lost much of his personal fortune. A reason for some of this debt was that he was subject to some charges that happened to be unfounded. Penney had been a major investor in Florida's City National Bank. When this bank collapsed, Penney was accused of profiting at the expense of fellow shareholders. After a brief stay in a sanitarium, Penney returned to his position as chairman of his company and began to rebuild his fortune. In fact, Penney resigned as chairman of the board in 1958. Later, Penney worked on the board of directors of the company he founded. He also maintained his interests in philanthropic works, serving as vice-president of the Layman's Movement for a Christian World.
James Cash Penney desired to live to be 100 years old. On December 26, 1970, Penney fractured his hip after falling in his Park Avenue Apartment. While he was recuperating, he suffered and died of a heart attack on February 12, 1971 at the age of 95.
James Cash Penney was an extremely generous Christian man. He donated so much of his business's and personal profits to charity. In fact, these good deeds almost put him out of business and into bankruptcy. However, he remember his Christian roots and he always pulled through any problem. He established a very successful organization as well. Without his mastery of the business arena of his times, JCPenney would not still be successful today.
This page was written and created by the aforementioned student, who was enrolled in a business course at the University of St. Francis. The content of this page is the work and opinion of the author, not the faculty or staff of the University of St. Francis. Neither the University nor its employees are responsible for the content of this web page.
General questions regarding these web page assignment can be directed to Gerard Kickul