J. C. Penney

Our mission at JCPenney has changed little since Mr. Penney founded the Company in 1902: it was, and is, to sell merchandise and services to consumers at a profit, primarily but not exclusively in the United States, in a manner that is consistent with our Company ethics and responsibilities. This statement covers our current activities and potentially many others. It includes stores and catalog, as well as our financial services, drugstore, and specialty business operations. With over 1,200 stores in all 50 states as well as Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Chile, J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (JCPenney) is the largest department-store retailer and catalog merchant in the United States, with licensing agreements for its products throughout the world. The company boomed in its early days in Western mining towns because it offered all goods at "one fair price" and brought fashionable goods from the East to remote towns. The company struggled through the 1970s, as upstart companies like Wal-Mart began selling goods at discount prices and long-time rivals like Sears gave JCPenney tough competition in the hardware and appliance departments. A major reorganization of the company from a mass marketer into a fashion-oriented national department store during the 1980s, along with the relocation of its corporate headquarters from New York to less expensive Texas, put JCPenney in a strong position to compete in the tough retailing climate of the 1990s. James Cash Penney started his first retail store in 1902 in Kemmerer, Wyoming, a small mining town. He was 26 years old and had grown up on a farm near Hamilton, Missouri. Two years after graduating from high school, Penney went to work for a local retailer, J.M. Hale. Penney's health suffered while he was in the Midwest, and his doctor advised him to move to the cooler climate of Colorado. After several ups and downs in Longmont, Colorado, Penney started working for the Golden Rule Mercantile Company, a dry goods retailer founded by T. M. Callahan. Callahan soon promoted young Penney to his Evanston, Wyoming, store to work with one of his partners, Guy Johnson. In 1907 Callahan and Johnson dissolved their partnership, and Penney bought them out, taking over three stores. He implemented the principles of his former partners and expanded the chain throughout the Rocky Mountains by allowing his store managers to buy a one-third partnership in new stores, provided they had a trained salesperson to take their place as manager at the old store. He established a central buying and accounting office in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1909, and had 34 stores with more than $2 million in sales by 1912. In 1913, Penney incorporated the company as J.C. Penney Company, Inc. and moved the corporate headquarters to New York City to be closer to manufacturers and suppliers. By 1915 the company had 83 stores and the next year ventured east of the Mississippi River for the first time with stores in Wausau and Watertown, Wisconsin. Penney became chairman of the board in 1917, when the company had 175 stores, and Earl Sams became president. The company continued to open stores at a fast clip. Private label brands were a major reason for the success of the company. Customers liked them because of controlled quality and cheaper prices than brand names; Penney liked them because he could control the price and make a higher profit margin. Belle Isle, Ramona, Honor Brand, and Nation Wide were private label names for piece goods, and Big Mac, Waverly, and Lady Lyke were labels on work shirts, men's caps, and lingerie, respectively. During the next several years, the company's growth was explosive. As Penney's personal wealth increased, so did his charity. Though he had quietly been giving thousands of dollars to local churches and organizations, in 1923 he founded Penney Farms, a 120,000-acre experimental farming area in northern Florida for down-on-their-luck farmers. In 1925 when the company's 674 stores generated sales of $9