An Old Timey Podcast - 55: JC Penney Becomes Rich *and* Cool (Part 3)

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

James Cash Penney had an ambitious dream. He wanted to own 50 Golden Rule stores. Over the course of just a few years, he achieved that dream and then some. But tough lessons in his personal life taught him that financial success wasn’t everything. So, he pulled back. He reevaluated his life. He travelled. He sought counsel from his pastor. He even bought a ticket on the Titanic! Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Norm pulled from: Currey, Mary Elizabeth. Creating an American Institution: The Merchandising Genius of J.C. Penney. Dissertations-G, 1993.Kruger, David Delbert. J.C. Penney: The Man, the Store, and American Agriculture. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017.Penney, James Cash. Fifty Years with the Golden Rule. Harper and Brothers, 1950.Are you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts!Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

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Start your free trial today. Here ye, hear-ye, you are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Norman Caruso. And I'm Kristen Caruso. And on this episode, it's part three of my series on J.C. Penny. Norm, I'm in no mood. Oh, should we cancel this recording? Ideally, yes.

But here I soldier on. Are we recording this early in the morning? No, that was terrible. We did that once and we shan't do it again. But I'll tell you what we're doing right now. We went to a graduation party, very lovely. Afterward, we went out for a lovely meal with our friends Kate and Tim. Did I just have a gigantic cheeseburger covered in onion rings with a side of tater tots and a cocktail?

Yes, I did. Oh, my God. I feel like a gigantic brick. And now I'm expected to podcast. You've got the idas. You're kind of sleepy, little tired. Coal miners are listening to this, and they're like, she's got a tough job. You know, it's where we went to that graduation party.

We just showed up at some high school kids' house. Norman! Oh, who's graduating? We knew that child fair in square. Yeah, we did that. And we're very happy for him. Yes. And we're definitely full of cheeseburgers,

but that's not going to slow us down on this episode that you have already warned me is not full of jokes. Will there be murder? No. J.C. Penny was not involved in any murders. that we know about. Yeah, none that he admitted to, right? Hey, what do you think of my new microphone?

I think it's kind of weird looking, if I'm honest. Kristen, I was inspired by Dr. Laura. I've been watching her clips on YouTube, and she has this exact microphone set up. Norm, I don't know how deep a dive you have done into Dr. Laura. A bit of a problematic figure. You might not want to emulate her in every single way, but I guess the microphone, there's no harm in that.

No. Kind of like to turn it. microphone set up. Okay, good for you. I'm giving it a shot. Anyway, do you have a plug for us for our Patreon? Yes. Let me push the thoughts of all the tater tots aside, the onion rings.

None of that is slowing me down because what I'm about to do right here, right now. You missed the golden opportunity. Tater thoughts. Oh, my God. Amazing. When you've eaten too many tater tots. All I've got are tater thoughts. You've got tater thoughts.

And let me tell you this tater thought, folks. Get on over to Pateto, Patreon. Oh, God, that was terrible. Patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. Hey, what do you get over there, Kristen? Hey, don't try to pick this up when I'm, you know, just falling down all over the place. This Patreon plug is going to be our worst one, baby. So buckle up.

Okay, at the $5 level, guess what you get. You get a monthly bonus episode. And holy crap. video form. Oh my God. At that same level, you get into our discord to chitty chat the day away. And I think that once you're in there, you'll find that it's popping like a bubble-wrapped dolphin. And holy crap, what? That's not enough for you? Calm down, big boy. Let me tell you what we got at the $10 level. We got all that stuff. Plus an autographed card, stickers coming right at you to your door. you get early, ad-free video episodes of every single ding-dog episode of this podcast.

Norm, what is happening with you? Are you pretending to sleep or die? What's happening? I've really picked this plug up. It's really moving. Also, 10% merch. 10% off merch is what I meant to say. And hold on to your shorts.

Do you all remember my old rotten, rotten, decrepit podcast? Let's go to court. Well, guess what? go on over to our Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. You also get ad-free episodes of Let's Go to Court, plus all the bonus episodes. My God, my goodness, what more could you want? There might be more, but if that's true, I have forgotten it. You get a whole other freaking podcast with our Patreon.

Two for the price of one. I think they're sold. Bogo. I think these folks love a bogo deal. We are the pay less of podcast. Well, I don't know about that. Okay, well, are you impressed, Norm or super impressed? Those are the two options.

I'm going to decline to comment. You know what? No, I'm impressed. You're pushing through the Tator thoughts. We're getting there. Kristen, before we jump into part three of this series on J.C. Penny, I do have some mistakes of shame. Oh, my goodness. Oh, that is just terrible.

because as everyone knows from the plug that I just did, I really pride myself on being perfect at all times and just really planning things out. Yeah, I always do. That's what they say. So what did you do to massively screw up this podcast, Norm? You want to tell us about it? Mistakes of shame. Christian, in our last episode, I mentioned that Tom Callahan's mother, Celia Callahan, ran her own dry goods store in Chilacothy, Missouri. And that inspired Tom and his wife Alice to start the Golden Rule store.

Well, I had the wrong Chilicothe. Oh. Celia Callahan ran her store in Chilacothy, Illinois. Wow. Yes, there's more than one Chilacothy. And let me tell you something about Chilacothy, Illinois. They didn't invent sliced bread there. They did not.

So, Chilacothy, Missouri continues to be known for only one thing, sliced bread. I have another mistake, actually. My goodness. Okay, so we talked about J.C. Penny's first store in a Wyoming town that I called Kemmerer. Okay. I checked the greatest website on the internet. It's called Reddit. Oh, uh-huh.

Apparently Kemmerer is pronounced Kemmer. The ER is silent on the end. Wow. So it's just Kemmer, which makes zero sense, but I'm going to trust the locals on this one. Anyway, this has been another incredibly regretful. and shameful segment of mistakes of shame. God, I'm so embarrassed.

And like I said, I'm not the one who made either of those two mistakes. Anyway, Kristen, are you ready to learn more about the... I'm very sorry. Everyone, if you don't have the video version and you're wondering what the hell that was, that was the sound of me realizing that one of my bang hairs was stuck to the eyelash glue on my false lashes. I thought maybe I'd lose an eyeball.

Don't worry. That was just a tater thought. Sometimes those intrusive tater thoughts get to you. I'm okay. Intrusive tater thoughts. That was worse. I'm sorry, Norm, go ahead. Now, okay, are you ready to learn more about the incredible life of J.C. Penny?

I really am. Well, before we do, Kristen, let's recap the last episode. Previously. You know what? If I ever write a romanty book, I'm going to be. going to do the audiobook version in that voice. You absolutely should. We learned that at the age of 21, James Cash Penny Jr.

headed out west to Denver, Colorado, for his health and for new opportunities. Denver was a big city at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It was so much different than Penny's small hometown of Hamilton, Missouri. But he was filled with determination to make a name for himself. J.C. Penny got a job at one of the many fancy department stores in Denver, But things didn't go well. The pay sucked. His coworkers were mean and ultra-competitive.

The business felt way too impersonal. J.C. Penny decided the big city wasn't for him, so he left for a smaller town, Longmont, Colorado. And there he found an opportunity to become his own boss. A failing butcher bakery shop! J.C. Penny bought the business, hoping to turn things around. But that didn't go well either. Penny lost his biggest customer, a local hotel restaurant,

because he refused to keep paying bribes to the head chef. Those damn morals got in the way every time. But J.C. Penny quickly found a new opportunity. Some might call it a golden opportunity. A job at the Golden Rule dry goods store. J.C. Penny thought the job was perfect for him. He could get back to his roots, selling necessities to small-town customers at affordable prices. And there was room to grow.

Golden Rule store owner Tom Callahan was big on training his employees and promoting them so that one day they could run their own Golden Rule store. So J.C. Penny worked his skinny little butt off. He sold product. He cleaned. He organized. He took shorter breaks. He spent almost every waking hour at the Golden Rule Store, and his hard work paid off. Soon, J.C. Penny was made the head sales clerk of another Golden Rule store in Evanston, Wyoming. Hang on. Sorry. You're okay. I was like, is it Evanston, Wyoming?

Or Evanston, Colorado. Did you have it right? I did have it right. You know, ever since I've been exposed to two Chilicothe's. Yeah. And ever since you exposed yourself in two different Chilocothe's. The great thing is it's double jeopardy, so you can't go to prison for it. I don't think that's how that works.

J.C. Penny didn't just find business success, though. He also found love in a suspicious divorced woman named Berta Hess. Why are divorced women so suspicious? I don't know. Can't trust them. Yeah, why are they divorced? Really strange. Bertha Hess and J.C. Penny got married and soon started a family.

Then came J.C. Penny's big breakthrough. Golden Rule store owner Tom Callahan and his partner, Guy Johnson, asked Penny to run his very own store in a small mining town called Kemmer, Wyoming. J.C. Penny jumped at the opportunity. And together with Berta, that store became a huge success. In its first year alone, they turned over the inventory four times and raked in over $29,000 in sales, adjusted for inflation, $1 million. With his success, J.C. Penny became a partner in two more stores,

one in Rock Springs, Wyoming, another in Cumberland, Wyoming. Now Penny was dreaming big. He told his wife, Berta, one day I'm going to own 50 of these stores. unbeknownst to J.C. Penny, that day was coming sooner than he thought. In 1907, Tom Callahan and Guy Johnson decided to end their partnership and friendship. They were not getting along anymore, and they wanted to sell their store shares to J.C. Penny. James Cash Penny Jr. was 33 years old. He had a wife, two sons, and three of his very own Golden Rule stores. And he would soon have a lot more. And that is where we will begin our story today.

Okay. How are you feeling? I'm ready for this to be a more serious episode. Well, I don't want to call it a serious episode. This episode is jam-packed. Oh. You know? So the thing of it is like, it's not like a super meaty boy.

Mm-hmm. But it's got, it's stuffed. It's like a stuffed burger. Oh, why'd you have to do a burger one? You know I'm literally stuffed right now. Yeah, there's just a lot of filling in this one. Okay. Okay.

Because we're cut. This guy did a lot of shit, all right? Okay. We're talking about it all, baby. So Kristen, J.C. Penny now owns three golden rule stores in Kemmer, Rock Springs, and Cumberland. His previous business partners, Tom Callahan and Guy Johnson, had personal and business disagreements, which made them slunk out. Mm-hmm. And like we talked about in the last episode,

something like that might scare someone into forming new business partnerships. You mean out of. It would scare them out of doing that. Oh, you're right, right. Not scare them into it. Right, scare them out of doing that. This was so terrifying. I'm going to do that same thing again.

Because I don't know anything different now. I just have to keep doing it. But, okay, it didn't scare J.C. Penny, though. His dream was to own 50 Golden Rule Stores, and he knew that the fastest way to achieve that dream was to find new partners to open more locations. As J.C. Penny put it, I felt that the plan had worked with me. It would work with others. I felt assured that the principle of allowing a man to share in what his labors produced is right and just. Sounds like communism to me.

We're going to investigate this guy? I am on it just as soon as the Tater Tots Digest. And don't worry, I won't forget about it. I won't get distracted by anything else. Yeah, I don't believe that with your ADHD scrambled brain. Oh, wow. Wow. Neurodivergence unite against Norm. Oh, it's all in good fun.

We'll attack you, you know, just whenever we feel like it. Yeah, we'll get around to it. I should probably write that down, huh? Mm-hmm. Of course, J.C. Penny wouldn't work with just anyone. He had very high standards. He wanted people like him, hardworking, driven, ambitious, and teetotelers.

He couldn't even hire someone who enjoyed a cocktail at the end of the day or before they record a podcast. Oh, no. Oh, no, Chris. You would not become a partner of J.C. Penny. Oh, no, I know I wouldn't. I mean, this guy sounds kind of obnoxious. I mean, good for him with these stores and stuff, but the whole, like, give up your life to work

in a store. Mm-hmm. No, thank you. Yeah. So in his handbook, J.C. Penny stated that managers and partners, quote, shall at all times properly and becomingly demean and conduct himself, and for gross misconduct, intoxication, gambling or other incompetence shall be forthwith removed,

and his accounts and interest settled at once. Maybe this is why my grandma loved working at J.C. Penny so much. She hated gambling, and the only thing she hated more than gambling was drinking. Yeah, this is the perfect boss for me. When J.C. Penny found a sales clerk with potential, he often moved them to his Cumberland Wyoming store. It became sort of a trial location. And if that clerk could consistently earn profits, they were made managers and partners. And J.C. Penny promoted good people quickly. He would say, the faster you climb, the better it suits us. And this strategy seemed to work well. And soon, J.C. Penny was getting letters from people all over the country who wanted to work for him. Most of them were men in their mid to late 20s who dreamed of owning their own business. And in particular, they wanted to work with him.

One partner wrote, He is one of the best businessmen in the West without exception. I think more of him than any man on earth. Goodness. If you are competent and looking for something with a future, tie up with J.C. Penny, if you can. If you're looking for a snap position without too much work attached, don't do it. Yeah, it was a lot of, it was long hours working for,

J.C. Penny. Well, yeah. Well, soon new Golden Rule Stores popped up across the west. Bingham Canyon, Utah, Preston, Idaho, Eli Nevada, Bootyville, Kansas. Stop it. Okay, that last one's not real. But it does seem like the name of a small town that J.C. Penny would open a store in, right? Sure. Sounds like the vibe. Absolutely. Yeah. In every single Golden Rule Store, J.C. Penny owned

two-thirds of the business while new partners got one-third of it. And JCPenney ran a tight ship. All of his stores must offer low prices, long hours, quality merchandise, clean environments, and don't forget, cash only. Oh, he's still doing cash only. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yep. However, partners did have some leeway, so they got to choose what products to sell in their stores, and they also got to do their own advertising. One store's motto was, to please, yes, is to please us. All right, calm down. Great advice for the bedroom, too.

Ew, Norm. Sexy time. Ew, oh, God, you made it worse with my dad. Okay. I'm sure there was a different connotation back then. Nope, it was purely about sex. Well, sex sells. I've been told, so there we go.

No, J.C. Penny would definitely not do that. And that's why when you sign up on our Patreon, you get an autographed photo of one of Norm's nipples. Okay, you don't get both. Because we're a classy operation. Kristen, you know how I feel about my nipples. Yeah, and that's why. I'm not, they're going to have to pay a lot more to see these nips.

Actually, I feel like we did a Instagram post where I'm shirtless. No, it didn't. The Hot Tub Olympics. Oh, yeah. Don't go look at that. Everyone. Don't look. It's weird.

Okay, I won't tell them what to look for it. Your nipples are a normal size, is what I'm saying to you. I think they're tiny. abnormally small. Anyway, why are we talking about this? I don't know. I feel like you brought him up. Oh, actually, I did.

I'm sorry. Thank you. Well, as a result of his leadership, J.C. Penny's Golden Rule Stores were thriving, baby. There was, of course, competition. There's this mail order company called Sears Roebuck.

That'll never take off. But a lot of folks actually preferred J.C. Penny's golden rule stores. You know, they didn't want to wait for something in the mail. and they don't want to pay extra postage, Golden Rule stores have what they wanted right away. Things like underwear from Fruit of the Loom,

jeans from Levi Strauss, and cowboy hats from Stetson. Wow. Fun little titty-bitty. Levi Strauss actually stopped selling to J.C. Penny for a brief period of time because they thought he charged too little for their jeans. Huh, okay.

It's like a quality thing. It's like if people think our jeans are cheap. Yeah. Yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah, so J.C. Penny didn't mark them up enough. Wow. Yeah. As J.C. Penny opened more and more Golden Rule stores with partners, he suddenly realized, wow, this is a lot of work managing all these stores. Maybe I need to refocus my efforts.

So Penny thought he should concentrate on the buying aspect of the business. You know, he had the most experience doing it, and with his expertise, he could get better deals and pass those savings onto customers. But that was tough to do from a small town like Kemmer, Wyoming. So the pennies were off to a bigger place. In 1909, J.C. Penny, his wife, Berta, and their sons, Roswell, and J.C. Jr., arrived in beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah. Population 92,000. Okay. Salt Lake City had exactly what J.C. Penny needed. Banks and major railroads.

The pennies bought a beautiful... two-story brick house with a garage located at. Is this place still around? It is. Okay, okay. 371. Seventh Avenue, Salt Lake City, Utah. Okay.

I mean, it's funny. It looks like a very modest home to me, but is Salt Lake City the most expensive place in the world? I'm looking at these house prices, and I am horrified. So it was basically downtown, so that's probably why it's so expensive. All right. I'll allow it. today it's like the cool hit place to live. J.C. Penny didn't have an office in Salt Lake City yet.

So he worked out of his home. But most of the time he was traveling to various stores or going on buying trips. And once a year, he stopped by Hamilton, Missouri to check on his mom. The move to Salt Lake City paid off. J.C. Penny's buying power helped Golden Rule stores continue to grow. In 1908, J.C. Penny owned four stores, and he had gross sales of $218,000, which today would be about $8 million. Two years later, in 1910, J.C. Penny owned 14 stores that grossed more than $660,000,

which today would be about $22 million. My God. So it's growing quick. Yeah. But it was a ton of work. Berta suggested that maybe they should take a break. She was like, we've been working our butts off for like eight years now. Right.

How about a vacation? So the pennies decided to take a trip. to Europe. They were very excited. Well, yeah. Yeah, you've been wanting to go to Europe. Well, yeah. I mean, I haven't been working hard for eight years, but you know. You've been working hard for the past seven years. I mean, you started Let's Go to Court seven years ago, did all that.

Now we're doing old-timey podcast. Well, I was working hard before that, too. All right, let's go to Europe. That's it. Yeah. Where'd they go in Europe? Well, hang on. Berta had some hesitancy about going to Europe because, because she had asthma.

And she was worried, I might not be able to tolerate some of the more humid countries, like Spain or something. Uh-huh. And so she went to the doctor and he was like, oh, well, let's just remove your tonsils. Does that help with asthma? It's not been proven to help. This was an old tiny idea. They were like, yeah, just get rid of your tonsils and you won't have asthma anymore. Man, they hated tonsils back in the day, didn't they?

Kind of a cure-all. Uh-huh. Back pain, remove the tonsils. Sure. My toe hurts. Just take the tonsils out. Depression. Goodbye tonsils.

I can't get erections anymore. Well, get rid of your tonsils, man. Don't know what to tell you. It increases the blood flow. Is something terrible going to happen when she gets her tonsils out? Hmm. Are they going to nick something? Let's find out.

I've got a prediction. What's your prediction? Mess up a vocal cord. She can't talk no more. Wow. That sounds like a very dramatic movie from the 90s. Well, I mean, that's kind of how I think. You just think in 90s movies plots?

In terms of dramatic movies, is the house going to blow up? Well, no, it's not. I just Googled it. It's still there. Still there. You know, definitely vocal cord stuff. Okay, so Berta is going to get her tonsils removed. And J.C. Penny was like, okay, that sounds good, but I'm going to be away on business during your surgery day.

Maybe we can, like, postpone the surgery. But Berta was like, it's fine. It's no big deal. When you get home, I'll be recovered, and then we can go to Europe. So on the big day, Berta Penny had the operation, and it went great. She had her tonsils removed. She recovered nicely. You lied to me, sir.

I'm not done telling my story. Okay, okay. When she left the hospital, Berta decided to walk home. She wanted to save money. You know, she'd always been... Dear God. She'd always been thrifty, Kristen. It's what helped the pennies save up enough money to buy their first golden rule story.

Okay. You know? Mm-hmm. And on the way home, a heavy rain began to fall. But Berta made it home safely. But the next day, Berta caught a really bad cold. And that cold got worse. It developed into a high fever.

And then pneumonia. Jay C.C. Penny got the news and he rushed home. And he arrived in time to say goodbye. Are you serious? On December 26th, 1910, Berta Penny died. She was 43 years old. Oh, my God. Oh, that's awful. That is horrible.

I was reading his autobiography, and J.C. Penny was just like, I wish she would have just, you know, gotten a ride home. Why did she have to walk in the rain? You know, he blamed himself for a lot of it. He was in shock. Berta was his invaluable partner in both life and business. And now, in almost an instant, she was gone. J.C. Penny wrote, quote, I felt mocked by life. even by God himself.

Wow. Mocked by life. That's harsh. Yeah. Yeah, but poetic too. Mm-hmm. Bertus death shook J.C. Penny to his core. He began to withdraw.

He became bitter. His faith was shaken. Store partners said he didn't talk as much. But thanks to family and friends, J.C. Penny got through those hard times. His mom and sister moved to Salt Lake City to help raise his two sons, Roswell and J.C. Jr. J.C. Penny also got a lot of support from the First Methodist Episcopal Church located at? Yeah? Here's a weird address. 203 South 200 East, Salt Lake City, Utah. I hate that address. Oh, wow. Boy, talk about a real shocking mix of architecture in this

Google map. Let me tell you something. What do you see, Kristen? I'm seeing everything. I'm seeing every kind of architecture available. Only the best in Salt Lake City. Also, a lot of porta-potties, so that's... They must be doing some construction. Or they're there. Or some pooping. Or some pooping, yeah.

That church was basically brand new when Bertie died. I regret to say this. I don't know how to describe this architecture style of this church, but it's cool looking, so I hope that helps you, folks. Yeah, very pretty. You have a way with words, Kristen. We can picture it now. Wow, very pretty.

There's a cross on top. Okay, you're welcome. The pennies attended that church regularly. The boys went to Sunday school there. And after Birch's death, J.C. Penny had many talks with the pastor, Reverend Francis Short. And Penny was really grateful to him for his sympathy and his support. And so as a thank you, J.C. Penny decided to pay off the first Methodist Episcopal Church's mortgage, $10,000, which today would be around $335,000. Wow. Plack alert. Plack alert. J.C. Penny also had a plaque put up at the church

near the entrance. It reads, First Methodist Episcopal Church dedicated to the worship of Almighty God and in loving memory of Berta A. Penny. Oh. And the plaque is still there today. That's wonderful. Yeah. He thought his wife would have loved that. Yeah. Okay. What? wife number two she coming from this church she bringing over a casserole oh i'm so sorry to have heard about your wife okay here rest your head on my bosom oh oh my bosom damn it karen don't come around here with your casserole i'm already here god damn it james james penny i brought some green bean casserole i'm so so sorry for your loss oh she was just a one wonderful woman, almost as good as me.

But not as big of a bosom. Yeah, not. Just rest your head on these. Come here, darling. You know, it's funny, I do believe he meets his second wife. Oh, let me tell us with the norm. I know he does. I know he does.

I'm not mad about it. I'm just saying, you know. These things happen. J.C. Penny may have been able to crawl out of the darkness, but he was still grieving. So he threw himself into work as a distraction. In 1911, eight new Golden Rules Stores opened in Utah, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada. And out of the 28 Golden Rule stores in the country, J.C. Penny had an ownership stake in 22 of them. So Tom Callahan and Guy Johnson, his former partners, they only had six total.

That's kind of wild. Yeah. He didn't even invent this thing. No, he did not. This is one hell of a business model. Tom Callahan's idea. Tom, what are you doing, man? J.C. Penny's goal was still 50 stores, and he was well on his way.

But as he opened more and more Golden Rule stores, he felt like he was losing control of everything. You know, for a long time, J.C. Penny literally visited and worked in every single store. He taught by example to ensure standards were met, that the stores served the public, that they had quick turnover of inventory, that they were clean, that the prices were affordable. his partnerships were kind of on a trust basis. J.C. Penny called it a human chain business. Sorry. I know. It kind of sounds like slavery.

Oh, that's not what I was thinking. No. I don't know. That's the first thing I thought of when he mentioned it. Okay. But no, he meant like we're humans and we're connected like a chain and that's how our business works. I get what he's saying, but I don't know.

Chains make me think of either slavery or a Christmas carol. you know, Jacob Marley. I hate, I hate a Christmas carol. Do you really? I also hate slavery, so I hate both examples

that you brought up. Why do you hate a Christmas carol? Boring. Ooh. History hose? Let her have it. Let her have it. Shake those chains at her.

You know, it's the worst. A Muppet Christmas Carol. Come for me, nerds. I don't care. Oh, Norm's leaving now. This is the shortest episode of an old-timey podcast. Thanks for coming.

Oh, how dare you! You're going to shit on the best Christmas movie ever made? That is not the best Christmas movie ever made. Get out of here. Literally anything else. Okay, we're moving on. You don't know what you're talking about. So Penny called his business model like a human chain.

Now, that may have worked on a smaller scale, but as things got bigger, you know, more problems can pop up. The banks. All of a sudden, you're off the chain. And, you know, sometimes that's a good thing. Sometimes not. Off the chain is late 90s for cool as fuck. Yeah.

That's off the chain. In this time period, it's not good because it means you're losing control of your golden rule stores. We all get it. So banks in particular were like, dude, what kind of business is this? You have all these individual partners and they all have their separate bookkeeping. You're rapidly expanding. This seems kind of shady. Yeah.

Yeah, banks did not trust J.C. Penning. And that made getting loans for large purchases kind of difficult. You know, his stores were cash only, but sometimes you do have to get a loan to, like, open a new store or buy a bunch of supplies. So J.C. Penny decided that maybe somebody should be, like, handling this human chain business on, like, a grander scale to, like make sure everything's running smoothly. So in the summer of 1911, he formed the J.C. Penny Company. and he made himself president. But I should mention that at the time, the J.C. Penny Company was only representing his own investments in Golden Rule stores.

So basically, his company was doing business with a bunch of individual people. Okay. That did solve some big problems. J.C. Penny was able to get bigger loans to open up new stores or to buy product. The corporation protected him from having his personal assets seized. A corporate accountant now kept track of all the store's finances. They set up a formal office in Salt Lake City, and store partners could now contact Penny there for help or questions. J.C. Penny also opened up a warehouse in Salt Lake City, a place for all of their product to be stored so Golden Rule stores could get restocked quickly without traveling all the way to New York City.

It seemed as if J.C. Penny had solved some major business issues. but he was still dealing with life issues. He missed Berta dearly. On buying trips to New York City, he often wandered the streets alone at night. He couldn't sleep. He was extremely tempted to try alcohol, to ease his pain.

He questioned what life was even about. He said, quote, to build a business, to make a success in the eyes of men, to accumulate money, what was the purpose of life? What had money meant for my wife.

Man, that's tough. Yeah. It is hard when you think about her just working, working, working, working, and then just dying. And she just dies, yeah. I think it ate away at him. Well, yeah, and I always think it's so sad. Sometimes you hear stories about people working really, really hard, and then retiring and dying not long after that.

It's a sad reality that many people live. Like you work your whole life and then you enjoy it for yourself for like eight years and then you die. It sucks. Yeah. And I think J.C. Penny fell horrible because like this was his dream to run these businesses and like become successful. And Berta like supported him and worked with him and helped build these stores up. And, you know, he may have in a way felt like he robbed her of her life. He didn't.

He didn't. But I see why he's. I see why he's having a tough time with this. Well, and you and I have talked about this. Raw dogging life is tough. He's not drinking, he's not turning to drugs. Folks, let me tell you. Normie see Raw Dog's life.

I raw dog life. Yeah, it can make things hard. Like, I totally get why people enjoy drink after work. Yeah. Or smoke a doobie, you know. I get it because life is hard sometimes. We call it grass now, Norm. It's 2020.

And I forgot, we don't, we call alcohol the devil squirt juice. We do. Yeah. Right. And we call intrusive thoughts, tater thoughts. So yeah, J.C. Penny was still struggling. Reverend Francis Short continued to console him. And he was like, hey, you know, you and Berta had planned to go on a European vacation.

I think maybe you should finally take that vacation. It would do you some good. And maybe you'll find some clarity in your travels. Yeah. So that's what J.C. Penny did. In 1912, he took a couple of family members and friends on an overseas vacation. And they went beyond Europe. They, so they did Paris, but they also did Egypt, Palestine, Constantinople.

They did all of it. It was an incredible trip. And being around family and friends, seeing the world, meeting new people, all of those experiences brought JCPenney that clarity he desperately needed. in a letter home to his family in Hamilton, he wrote that the trip, quote, has added years to my life. And I must say that I have come to the conclusion

that I must take better care of myself if I expect to remain here. I am fortunate in having in possession scores of friends from one ocean to another who are apparently very much interested in my welfare. It makes me realize that I have yet a great deal in life to live for. Since he was a child, J.C. Penny had always thought money was the key

to a good life. Growing up, his family was poor. He had to earn money for himself at a young age. In a high school debate, he argued money was more coveted than wisdom. All of his work up to that point had been about earning money. That was success to him. But then Berta died. After this trip across the world, J.C. Penny had a new outlook on life. He had new purpose. He did want to be successful, but it wasn't about stockpiling money like a greedy little dragon. It was about using that money to lift people up, providing his customers with a great shopping experience and affordable prices, giving business partners new opportunities, financially supporting less fortunate friends and family. That was J.C. Penny's purpose in life. He was once again filled with determination.

No, wait, he was overflowing with determination. Someone's going to have to clean that up. To make his golden rule store successful, he couldn't wait to return home from Europe. J.C. Penny was pretty excited about the return trip across the Atlantic, because he was going to be traveling on a brand new luxury liner. It was the largest ocean liner in the world, built by the prominent shipping company, White Star Line. Uh-oh. People were calling it the ship of dreams.

Shut up. The unsinkable. The Titanic. What in the... He did not get on the Titanic. He did. Well, let me rephrase. He was planning to.

Oh, okay, okay. He would not be traveling on the maiden voyage. He was still traveling at that time. He was like, damn, that sucks. That would have been really cool. That's okay. I'll buy tickets for the second trip across the Atlantic, which was going to take place in June of 1912.

Well, we all know what happened. On April 14th, 1912, the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage. after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic of the 2,2006 passengers on board, 1,500 died. How am I just now learning about this? As for your protection right there. Is it really too soon to joke about the Titanic? No, just like, you know, I'll make sure you're joking there.

Okay. Last week, I think it was in an episode, you made a comment about how in 1914 the Titanic sank. On April 14th, 1912, yes. That was the April 14th was also the day J.C. Penny opened his first store. Right. And I remember at the time thinking, I am shocked that Norman knows the date that the Titanic sank. And now this all makes sense. You'd already researched it. Okay. Actually, no, I just knew that date because I hadn't written this part yet.

You just knew the date? Yeah, April 14th, 1912. Huh. Guess you weren't a Titanic mega fan when the movie came out. I wanted to know everything. I was certainly a Leo fan. At the Scholastic Book Fair, I bought a book all about the Titanic. Oh, hell yeah.

I was obsessed. It had like the, you know how those books that would, it would like show like a building or a ship? And then it would like turn the page to see the inside of it. Oh, my God. And then you'd see people walking around and like the Schallastic Book Fair was the coolest thing. Yes, I know exactly the type of book you're talking about, and I coveted it. When I worked at the middle school doing computer work, they had a scholastic book fair, and like all those feelings flooded back to me.

I was like so excited when the Scholastic Book Fair showed up. I was browsing all day, looking around. They were asking you to get back to work. It was a very special time when you got to go to Scholastic Book Fair. But man, those books are expensive. Well, yeah. Good place to get books? Costco.

Great prices. That's good. That's a little known local store of ours. Right, right. Yeah, it's good to help out the little guys. So JCPenney did eventually get back home, not on the Titanic. And he immediately set his new life plan into action. First, he became less thrifty.

Previously on buying trips, he would force seven of his partners to share one hotel room. Disgusting. He had price limits on meals. Everyone had to walk instead of taking the streetcar. But now, J.C. Penny invited his partner's wives and children to come along on the buying trip. Everyone had their own hotel room, and they did fun extracurricular activities like sightseeing tours. Okay, that's a huge change. Yeah.

And a very good change. Yeah, I really don't want to share a hotel room with seven other men. No. As someone who has done the video game convention circuit, been there, done that, never want to do it again. Also, the magic, the gathering, competitive scene. We did that all the time, too. Horrible. I can smell it now.

Oh, you have no idea. You can't even imagine the smell. Next, J.C. Penny admitted to past mistakes and course corrected. Remember that warehouse he set up in Salt Lake City? Not really, but go ahead. So he set up a warehouse in Salt Lake City to get product to stores quicker. Sure. Well, when he set up that warehouse, he had hired an outside man.

to run it, someone with previous warehouse experience. But he ended up regretting it because that guy just didn't really know the Golden Rule stores all that well. And he would often buy inferior product to save money. And the partners complained nonstop. So J.C. Penny made it right. He bought out that warehouse manager's contract and got rid of him. He had to start all over.

It was a super expensive mistake. But J.C. Penny remarked that the attempt at a warehouse had failed, not the idea. A new warehouse plan was in the works. And finally, J.C. Penny lifted up his partners by bringing everyone under one umbrella. By 1913, J.C. Penny owned 36 Golden Rule Stores. And it became clear that in order to continue expansion, to get bigger loans, to spread that wealth, he had to change the business structure again. So J.C. Penny consolidated his partnerships under one roof in the J.C. Penny Company.

So now J.C. Penny wasn't doing business with, individual people anymore. Every partner was now a shareholder in the J.C. Penny company. Well, kind of. I'm going to explain. He had a very unique business structure. Okay. So a typical company has like one stock.

So like Apple. You buy shares of Apple. When Apple does well, you make money, right? Mm-hmm. But J.C. Penny set up his company a little differently. The company itself owned zero stock. Instead, each individual store had stock. So if a partner store in like Bingham Canyon, Utah did really well, that partner did really well.

Yeah. But if that store did poorly, only that partner took the hit, not the entire company. Okay. So J.C. Penny set up the company that way because he wanted to preserve the partnership incentive as much as possible. A sales clerk in a golden rule store could be a managing partner within two to five years. Yeah. And you might be wondering, well, then what's the... the point of being in the corporation.

Well, the J.C. Penny Company provided guidance. It provided protection. It provided product for each store. And that was very, very important to the partners because J.C. Penny was running everything. And they trusted him. And he did good work. You know, banks still had doubts about that setup. They're like, dude, why don't you just set up like a normal company?

Yeah. But J.C. Penny was all about the partners. And the numbers didn't lie. By the end of 1913, the J.C. Penny Company was running. $48 golden rule stores. Good grief. With sales of $2.6 million, which today would be $84 million. There were 34 partners in the business.

And J.C. Penny was the president and general manager of the company. I think it's a cool setup because it still incentivizes you to work your way up from sales clerk, run your own store. And yeah, you are responsible for your store still. I agree. I mean, if it fails, it's kind of on you. And if it succeeds, it's on you. Yeah, you get rewarded the most. That's a powerful incentive. Yep. Well, and it's like he said earlier, like men deserve to get, you know, the fruits of their labor. That is just and right. So with this new corporate setup, more banks were willing to provide credit for bigger purchases. but the wealthiest banks in the country,

which were located in New York City, they still did not trust J.C. Penny. They called him, quote, a dark horse from the wild and woolly west. J.C. Penny wondered, how do I get these banks to take my company seriously? And that's when he decided, I guess we're going to go to New York City,

because if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere, baby. Wow, and he coined that phrase on that trip. Yeah, Frank Sinatra stole it from him. It's too bad. Yeah. So why go to New York City? Well, JCPenney wanted to set up a full-time buying operation for the company. He and other partners would be able to interact with vendors and manufacturers daily. They could get bigger discounts on the latest fashion and merchandise. They could set up that new warehouse. But this time around, he wanted to form buying teams. Partners would become experts in one particular kind of merchandise. So one guy, all he would focus on is women's lingerie. And then another guy would be like, I'm all about men's suits, you know. So he wanted experts.

And the only people allowed to be buyers for the JCPenney Company were store owners who knew the business. No outsiders allowed. At first, the other partners, they weren't super into the idea of going to New York City. They were like, what's wrong with Salt Lake City? It's a perfectly cromulent place to do business. Quit saying cromulent on this podcast. I will not. I will keep saying it.

Hopefully every episode. Great. But J.C. Penny insisted he didn't want to move the entire business to New York City, just the buying portion. The rest of the company would remain in Salt Lake City. And ultimately, the partners trusted him to do what was best, so they approved. J.C. Penny got to work. He bought a house in nearby East Orange, New Jersey, and moved his family there, including his mother, Mary Frances Penny. Speaking of Mary Frances Penny, she was now 70 years old. I was going to ask, how is she still going? She's 70. She is in poor health.

Oh, okay. Mm-hmm. She had had quite a life. She lived through one of the most difficult chapters in American history, the Civil War. She had given birth to 12 children. Oh. She helped her on a massive farm and had to withstand economic struggles. She gave J.C. Penny money to realize his dreams, despite having her own money problems. But for her, it was all worth it. She lived long enough to see her son's business become very successful.

And on November 2nd, 1913, Mary Francis Penny passed away. J.C. Penny buried her back home in Hamilton, Missouri. On the day of the funeral, all of J.C. Penny's Golden Rule stores closed for one hour to honor his mother. One hour. That's very J.C. Penny of them. During the funeral. Yeah. It was another hard loss for J.C. Penny. But his spirits lifted the following year when on April 1st, 1914, he got the news.

the J.C. Penny Company had officially added 22 new stores, which brought their total to 70. Sad thing was, it was an April Fool's joke. Gotcha! He's very fragile right now. Oh, I'm sorry. J.C. Penny had officially smashed his goal of owning 50 stores. It was a dream realized. The press took notice as well.

The New York Times sat down with J.C. Penny for an interview, and they asked, How can 70 individually operated stores do so well and operate smoothly? J.C. Penny replied, Cooperation in business means good teamwork. Good teamwork means efficiency, and efficiency means success. Wow. Jaycey Penny's celebrity was rising. He was becoming a big name in the retail business world.

But inside, he felt off. It's funny what happens when you finally hit a major goal in life. You know, sometimes you get there and you're like, okay, well, I guess that's it. Yeah. Now what? It's kind of a strange feeling. And I have experienced this myself. I was wondering if you were going to talk about this.

Yeah. When I hit a million subscribers on YouTube, which I had been working my little butt off for a long time to get there. And I finally hit it. And yeah, once I got it, I was just like, okay, well, I guess that's it. Yeah, I mean, you had been so focused on that first. so long. And you'd been like, we're going to have a party. We're going to do all this stuff. And then it happened and you were just kind of like, oh. Yeah, we didn't have a party or anything. We had no party. It was like a major milestone for me. And I just thought once I hit this,

everything will be different. And really not much happened. Nothing was different. I got a nice plaque. Yeah. Plack alert. Yeah. That was cool. hanging in my office. But yeah, I had that feeling of like, well, now what do I do? Yeah. Chasey Penny was feeling the same way. And he once again went to his pastor, Reverend Short, and he asked for advice. Reverend Short told him, you will serve your mission better by living longer, even though you make a few less dollars per year.

What will the product of 50 stores amount to for either you or your cherished plans if you're dead? I would rather have you around as a living clerk than a dead millionaire. J.C. Penny took those words to heart. And with the buying operations squared away and running smoothly in New York City, he was ready to take a step back. And the first thing he did was he started divesting from the J.C. Penny Company. At that time, J.C. Penny owned about 55% of all the shares. And he regularly collected checks from store dividends. So like in 1913, he got $27,000 from the Kemmer store, which is about $875. $5,000. Wow. That's just one store. Wow. Okay. Yeah. In many, many business owners might just chill and collect checks. Hell yeah, you totally should, dude. What are you thinking? J.C. Penny felt differently. He thought, I have plenty of money now. And if I step away, I give other people the chance to rise up and succeed. Wow. And in turn, the business will grow. J.C. Penny had always said the partnership idea was the, quote, lifeblood of our enterprise.

By 1916, J.C. Penny had reduced his shares from 55% to 36%. And by the 1920s, it was down to 15 to 20%. So is the idea, the whole appeal is you get people in when they're kind of young and hungry. Yep. They rise up quickly. They become store owners. And then he feared, oh, eventually they're going to resent giving me half of their profits. or whatever percentage. And so I've got to step back to let them continue to grow. Yeah, he was about finding more partners, lifting them up, letting them succeed. And the only way to do that was for him to get out of the way.

Okay. You know, J.C. Penny also made a stunning announcement when at the 1917 company convention, he resigned as president and general manager of the company. A longtime store partner, Earl Sams, took over. as president. J.C. Penny would stay on as the chairman of the board of directors, but he wanted to focus on one particular aspect of the business, the employees. He wanted to find quality people to run his stores. In 1918 alone, J.C. Penny traveled the United States and personally interviewed 5,000 applicants for Golden Rule store partners. Only 100 were selected.

J.C. Penny also launched a company magazine called The Dynamo. its goal was to improve communication, cooperation, and push the company's philosophies. Was it a dynamo with an exclamation point? It was not. Well, that's stupid. Okay, fine. The magazine contained executive profiles, fashion news, fun anecdotes, and inspiring quotes from the man himself. One of my favorite being, money is always the byproduct of a useful service.

That's one of your favorites? I really like that one, yeah. Why do you like that? Well, it feels very similar to when you put in the work, the results take care of themselves. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or that former NFL player who was like, yeah, when you put in the practice, the score takes care of itself. Yeah. Yeah.

So he's trying to say like, yeah, you don't focus on the money. You focus on doing good work and the money will be there. Okay, yeah. That's why I like that quote. I like it. You know, we've heard a lot of good work. quotes lately. Like what? Well, we played Trivial Pursuit with your parents and your mother said, well, it's easy if you know what it is.

Referring to the answer to the question. This game's easy if you know the answer. Brilliant. Great insight from my mom. And since I told that story on her, I will tell the story on myself that I was asked the super hard question of naming the three animals that are mentioned in home home on the range. You got deer and antelope. Yeah. No problem. But you couldn't come up with that third animal.

Humiliating. History hosts, let us know if you know. Yeah. J.C. Penny also continued to travel the country and check on the stores. Not all of them, but just some of them. And even with stepping back in the day-to-day operations of the business, the company just kept growing. The invention of the automobile brought in more customers from faraway places.

stores were starting to expand to the east. A Golden Rule store popped up in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. New regional warehouses opened up in St. Louis, Missouri, and St. Paul, Minnesota. And keep in mind, this was all happening during World War I, a time of economic uncertainty and major supply chain issues. One reason was that men were becoming more fashion conscious. Oh, really? Yeah. And the reason was, U.S. Army soldiers were traveling to big cities, and they wanted to.

to look their best in the big city. Well, hell yeah. And hey, J.C. Penny's golden rule stores were a great place to buy quality fashion at affordable prices. Okay, so I've got a question. He went on that, you know, big interviewing tour, interviews 5,000 people. And World War I's happening. We're about to lose a bunch of dudes to the war effort. Yeah.

Is he only hiring men? I can only assume so. Yeah. I couldn't actually figure that out. I tried because I was like, were any women involved in this? But I couldn't figure that out. Yeah. I do know he had women working in his stores as sales clerks, but as far as partners, I don't know.

I would assume no. I would assume no because otherwise he would be celebrated for that. And since that wasn't mentioned, I'm going to say no. Yeah. Okay, cool. So let me just illustrate the growth here. Before World War I, J.C. Penny had 48 stores in 7. states. After the war, he had 97 stores in 25 states. And they were making $560 million in today's

money in sales. Good grief. Yeah. J.C. Penny now owned the largest amount of golden rule stores by far. It was not even close. Who can even remember Tom Watts's his butt? Old Tom Callahan and Guy Johnson. How does he feel about this? You know, I really tried to figure that out. Yeah. The limited sources I saw, he was just happy for J.C. Penny. Oh, well, that's cool. Yeah.

But he doesn't, he doesn't benefit in any way. Nope. Okay. Not at all. I mean, maybe name recognition because if J.C. Penny's golden rule stores, they're called golden rule stores. So Tom Callahan's golden rule store has the same name. Maybe people are like, oh.

That's just wild that this is his business model, the name of his store. It's. Yep. But, you know, this was Tom Callahan's idea, too. He wanted partners. Yeah, go off, run your own store. It'll be great. But, I mean, initially, he did own part of the stores.

Right. He did own part of the stores with J.C. Penny. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, J.C. Penny owns the largest amount of Golden Rule stores by far. And soon partners started questioning. They're like, why are we even called Golden Rule stores? They're like, I don't think we should be confused with inferior run Golden Rule stores.

Oh, ouch, poor Tom. We run J.C. Penny stores, baby. At first, J.C. Penny was like, absolutely not. The Golden Rule sums up what we are all about. As a compromise, J.C. Penny allowed store signs to say, J.C. Penny Company's golden rule store. Get out of here. But soon even that wasn't enough. Partners were like, dude, you're like famous now.

Yeah. Your name stands for equality. It stands for good business. you are the face of these stores. Yes. And so, starting in 1919, all new Golden Rule Stores had to be named the J.C. Penny Company. Existing stores actually got to choose what they wanted to do. Okay.

They could either keep the name the Golden Rule Store or they could change it to the J.C. Penny Company. Pretty much every single store switched to the J.C. Penny Company. Yeah. Now, that name change didn't happen without some hiccups. one customer thought the J.C. Penny Company was like a cheap dime store, so they stopped coming. But overall, the name change was the right move easily. You know, business kept booming for them. And even though the J.C. Penny company was growing into this powerful corporation, J.C. Penny ensured that every store was still providing that personal touch. You know, managers were told, you got to go meet the locals. You got to go talk to the locals.

go to church, come active in the church, get involved with the community. And doing that, it really shielded them from a lot of criticism. Because, you know, when a big company comes in to a small town and kind of shuts down small businesses, they can get a lot of flack. But doing stuff like that really shielded them from a lot of that criticism. It's kind of interesting how things worked out for J.C. Penny. You know, he had reduced his workload. but the business kept growing, and he actually made more money. J.C. Penny settled into a more relaxed life.

He lived in a luxurious eight-bedroom apartment on Riverside Drive, a wealthy neighborhood in New York City. Eight-bedroom apartment? Wow. His sons, Roswell and J.C. Jr. were officially out of the house. Roswell Penny was attending Princeton. Okay. J.C. Jr. was at a college prep academy, getting a...

ready to attend Princeton. J.C. Penny also paid for his nieces and nephews in Hamilton to come to New York and attend private school. Wow. Okay. Can you imagine you decide you're going to work less, and so you do work less, but the money just rolls in? Oh, I mean, that's just best of both worlds right there. Oh my God. What would you do? What would you do? If that happened to me? Yeah. If I could work less but make more money. Yeah. How would you spend your time?

Sounds like an introduction to a pyramid scheme. To be honest. Let me tell you something, Norm. I was skeptical at first, too. Why don't you come to one of my meetings next week and I'll tell you all about it? I tell you what. Here's what I would do. Personal chef would prepare all my meals, including snacks.

And snacks? Yeah, yeah. That's a lot. I don't even want to put the cheese on a plate. I want someone else to do it. So, wait, the chef's going to be in the house all day. Yeah, and the chef is hot. Oh.

So, and also, I'm in the hot tub all the time. I'm pruned up all the time. That can't be good. It's probably not great. But you're rich now. You know, your dermatologists say, I really think you shouldn't do this. Also, masseuse is always there. I've just always getting massage.

I sound disgusting. I'm ready for my massage now. Hey, chef, I need something. meatloaf, I'll take it in the tub. Yeah, and you rubbed my shoulders. Probably this should not happen to me. Clearly, I'm not mature enough for it. You're going to have them give you a spaghetti dinner while you're in the hot tub. Yeah, I've not mentioned anything about paying for anyone's college. We're not there yet. I'm sorry to our niece and nephew.

But Auntie, you've got a personal chef and a personal masseuse, and all you do is sit in a hot tub. Yeah, it's a tough life, honey. Hey, I earned this. Yeah, yeah. I podcast for a living. It's called reaping the rewards. Yeah, J.C. Penny was living the good life, Kristen. He started taking better care of himself, too.

You know, he had gained weight over the years. He was now 153 pounds, which he said, quote, for a little fellow like me is considered a mighty good weight. How tall was he? Five foot eight. that's really not heavy he's starting to offend me honestly well yeah he wanted to shed a few lbs okay every morning he went on horseback rides through central park oh okay is that a good workout for the you know i heard that you know he in his autobiography was like yeah i started doing

horseback riding i was just like i mean i'm sure i'm sure it's something kind of in the way that bowling is a work out, I guess. Hey, me and the boys joined a bowling league. It's intense, okay. Few of my teammates are on the injured reserve list, hurt their knees, their backs. I'm still hanging in there, all right? I do feel bad that I laughed so hard when I found out that one of your teammates is injured. Yeah, we're easily the worst team there.

But we have fun. That's what it's all about. Sure. Mm-hmm. Jay C. Penny, yeah, when he was like, I did. I did horseback riding through Central Park. I was like, yeah, but like, yeah, what's the physical activity required to do horseback riding? Sure.

Sounds like the horse is getting the workout, but okay. Oh, a little heavy there, pal. Well, yeah, it's not like riding a bike. That's like, you know, you're working your legs. It's like if I drove a car around and I was like, who, what a workout. You know what I mean? I am exhausted. Jay-Sy Benny also dived back into old interests.

He had private tutoring to further. his education. Okay. He started studying livestock again. J.C. Penny also became kind of a little socialite. He's rich. He's single. He's living the good life.

And so naturally, he met another woman. Okay. Her name was Mary Hortense Kimball. Isn't it Hortense? Hortense. Yeah. All right, let's go ahead and get this out of the way. Okay.

She was four years younger than J.C. Penny. I love it. Do you prove? I whole heart. heartedly approve. Mary Kimball was from a wealthy Salt Lake City family that made all their money in the mining industry. She was a very charitable person. J.C. Penny loved that about her.

During World War I, she used her own money to travel to Europe and volunteer with the YMCA. Yes, that YMCA. Wow. They provided recreational, educational, and religious services for troops. When she returned home from the war, she was introduced to J.C. Penny through his pastor, Reverend Short. Oh. J.C. Penny was quite taken by Mary Kimball. He said she, quote, was highly educated, a lady possessed of a character of rare beauty and of versatile talent.

Hmm. Kind of how I feel about you, Kristen. Oh, my goodness. Everyone, worm's eyeballs just transformed into hearts, and they bow-goed out of his head. It happens all the time when he looks at me. Yeah, I'm like the, you know, the wolf pounding on the... the table. That's only when I'm looking really good.

You're looking good today, Kristen. Got the romper on. The tongue rolls out. Oh, yeah. We know it. All over my keyboard. So J.C. Penny went to Mary Kimball, and he said, Let's get married and make a baby.

All right. On July 29th, 1919, the two got hitched. How old are they? I know you said they're four years apart. Let's see, 1919. J.C. Penny's 43. Okay. She's 39.

And this is her first marriage? I believe so. For that time, that is some shocking stuff. Seems suspicious. Way more suspicious than divorce, and we all know divorce is suspicious. Someone in our Discord wants to change their username to a suspicious divorcee. They totally should. Yeah.

I guess they had recently been divorced. Well, and that's, you know, then we all know to just, you know, anything they say, we're just a little skeptical. Yeah, maybe take second glance at them. Yeah. You know? Uh-oh. They've been divorced. Yeah.

A year later, a son was born. They named him Kimball Penny. J.C. Penny moved his new family to White Plains, New York. About 20 miles north of New York City. They lived in a beautiful white mansion sitting on 50 acres of land. Holy crap. Am I going to be able to look this up? Fortunately, the house is no longer there.

But if you Google J.C. Penny White Plains House and go to the image results, it should be the first result. Well, my goodness. Pretty nice, huh? Well, it's funny, you get kind of a mix of results, and one of them is one of the houses in Wyoming, which is really tiny. Yeah. But I'm guessing you're referring to this big-ass, impressive one. The big-ass black-and-white photo. Yes.

Yep. The house is no longer there, and that's because the Penny family would donate the land to the city so they could build a new high school. The house was demolished. Gosh, it's too bad. They didn't just keep the house. Well, got to put that high school somewhere. Okay. In White Plains, New York, Mary tended to baby Kimball while J.C. Penny dived into an old hobby.

Livestock. He raised sheep. Pigs. It's just sheep, isn't it? Sheeps. Isn't it just sheep? Shep. He raised sheep. Shep.

Shep is plural for many sheep. He raised sheep's, pigs, and chickens. And he absolutely loved it. They reminded him of growing up in Hamilton, Missouri. They reminded him of his dad. He found it relaxing. It was good for his mental and physical health. But boy, those winters in upstate New York,

not so fun, Kristen. So the pennies decided to spend their winters in Miami, Florida. Really? What the hell is that? Is this the Golden Girls? Remember the episode? Yes! Where they write the Miami theme song?

You really can't mistake B. Arthur's voice. Yeah. Man, she was my favorite. I know. Sassy, tall woman. Why would I be into that? I don't know. It is really.

reassuring when I hear things like that. I'm like, you know, the good Lord was just guiding him to me this whole time. It's destiny that I find you. During this time, many rich and famous Americans lived in Miami during the winter. Folks like politician William Jennings Bryan. Inventor Alexander Graham Bell. Industrialist like Andrew Carnegie. And who could forget, John, John, John, I want to make up?

Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, to Miami House. Okay. I read some source that said during like the spring and summer and fall, Miami had like 29,000 people. But during the winter, the population went up to 129,000 people. I've always wondered what it's like to be a local in one of these places that just balloons up with tourists. It's got to be such a mixed bag of emotions because it's like, okay, you folks are how I make my money. But goddamn, I can't go to my favorite restaurant and get a table.

Talk to my brother. He lives at the Outer Banks. I'd rather not. I'm just kidding. Hey, he goes through that all the time. The pennies purchased a home on Bell Isle, which was a small island near Miami Beach. Bell Isle was small. It had eight private estates. It sounds pretty big. No.

Well, they were pretty big private estates, right? Yeah, they were. It sounds huge. Are you making a joke here? You called it a small island. twice, so I'm just trying to mess with you. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, did I really? Oh, I did. Oh, I did. It's nothing to be a shamed. Oh, you don't need to be ashamed. I'm just making a little joke. I'm looking at my script now. Okay. I'm just making a small, little tidy joke. That's it.

Okay. Bell Isle was small. Small, small, small, small, small. It had eight private estates on a very small island. I just can't picture it. I'm picturing something huge. Well, estate number eight belong to the pennies. A beautiful two-story mansion, Italian Renaissance style, filled with antiques and dark mahogany woodwork. You can just picture it now, can't you? I love it. Is this place still around? No.

Oh, did the tiny island just blow away like a little speck of dust? So I think the foundation is there. Oh. All of those private estates are gone. Bell Isle is now home to hotels and condominiums. Highlands. Sounds beautiful. Yeah.

Outside the house, landscaping, palm trees, shrubs, tropical flowers. God. Oh, my God. Gorgeous. Just gorgeous. This life. This life. Yeah.

It was a pretty good life. From December to April, the pennies lived in their little paradise. Mary Kimball Penny loved to entertain with music. She wanted their house to be a quote, musical mecca. They had a huge pipe organ, a grand piano. They had regular performance. performances for friends and neighbors. JC Penny continued to work from Miami, but, you know, by telegram or by phone.

Sure. You know, they would send him, like, meeting minutes, and he'd be like, yeah, okay, whatever. This is amazing. This is how you want to live, huh? Yeah, the speed of communication. And also, how believable to be like, oh, a telegram? I didn't get it. Yeah, must have been lost in the Pony Express's butthole or something.

I don't know. Wow. So the Pony Express is still operating in 1920? Yeah, a lot of people don't know that. Uh-huh. Yeah, I thought they only lasted a year, maybe less than a year. Are you serious? The Pony Express lasted less than a year? I think so. I think that's right. And I still had to go to that boring-ass museum in St. Joseph, Missouri when I was a kid. Oh. Future topic?

No, don't you dare. That is so boring. Oh, my God. I was in eighth grade. They made me go to that. I do want to do the Pony Express. It's local history. I might be sick that day. Kristen. Is it a one-parter or are we doing a series? I'm thinking. Are you going to start with the great-great-granddad of the person who started? You know how I do.

I do know how you do. You know me in context. No, you always make it fascinating. First of all, let's talk about where ponies come from. When a daddy pony and a mommy pony fall in love. Great. No, I do want to do Pony Express one day. But let's finish up this story on JCPay.

Don't look at the camera like that. What? So yeah, he's living your life, Kristen. He's answering telegram. Let me talk on the phone a little bit. You know, business was still doing well. JCPenney Company had 371 stores in 29 states doing $50 million in sales per year, adjusted for inflation, $912 million.

Good grief. Yep. And he's just sitting, oh, I was about to say drinking mojitos. He's not doing that. That's the one thing. Virgin mohitos. Yeah, sure. Which, who knows what that would taste like?

I don't. Very minty. Yeah, just minty and limey. Probably pretty good. Maybe put throw a ginger beer in there. That'd be good. Living it up in Miami. Then going to New York whenever, traveling.

Mm-hmm. Surrounded by wonderful landscaping. Had 50 agers. Eggers. Had 50 acres in upstate New York. York? Agers are better than acres because they come with free eggs. Thank you.

Well, Kristen, sad to say, none of that matter to J.C. Penny after he experienced yet another loss. Oh, no. In February of 1923, Mary Kimball Penny complained about stomach pains. Oh, no. For a week, she lay in bed. She was very uncomfortable. Doctors weren't really sure what it was, but they're like, well. She's a woman. She's probably making her enough.

This isn't serious. She probably made it up. Yeah, doctors didn't know what it was. They didn't think it was very serious. But then one morning, Mary had very violent stomach pains. J.C. Penny quickly called the doctors who rushed over. The diagnosis, Mary was experiencing internal bleeding. Oh, been there.

Yep. Eventually, she fell unconscious. The doctor said, said there was nothing they could do. A few hours later, Mary Kimball Penny passed away at the age of 43. Are you kidding me? Nope. Isn't that the same age?

Wow. Cause of death. Acute indigestion. Give me a break. That's not indigestion. It's an old-timey diagnosis, and it could honestly... Which means we have no effing clue. It means, oh, your stomach hurt when you died, so it's acute indigestion.

It could even be a heart attack, seriously. Yeah, I believe it. Yeah. It could have been what you went through. Yeah, I mean. Internal bleeding? Maybe. Maybe.

Everyone, if you don't know, I had a real wild time in 2020, just a month or two into the pandemic. What did I have again? It was... You had a burst cyst. Yeah. Which flipped your fallopian tube over and over and over. They had to remove that. You're in a lot of pain.

Had the internal bleeding. Mm-hmm. A lot of very casual medical people who are like, it's no big deal. Just take some pain pills. No, at first they wouldn't give me pain pills. Oh, right, yeah. Because they were so convinced that you were going to abuse them. Well, or which, you know, that's fair.

I don't want them to, you know, just hand them out like candy because that can create problems, but yeah, they didn't think it was anything too bad. Yeah. Future topic? Oh, God. What, women being gaslit in hospitals? Women being gaslit. We don't have the time. Part 80. This series goes on forever. So yeah, cause of death, acute indigestion. That's terrible. J.C. Penny had now lost his second wife. He was devastated, but he had been through this before. you know, he tried to stay positive. He said that he was, quote, happy in the fact that I had the privilege

of knowing her intimately and enjoying her love and friendship for the short three and a half years. Gosh. But still, J.C. Penny kept asking himself that nagging question. Why her? Why did she have to die? Yeah.

After reflecting and getting support from friends and family, J.C. Penny said, quote, her departure has impressed me with the necessity of living each day as if it were the last. Besides, it has brought me into a closer realization of the power of God. It has also made me feel that I have not rendered the service to my fellow man that I should have done, and from now on it shall be my endeavor to put forth a greater effort.

He felt like he wasn't doing enough. Well, sure, he's just in a hot tub eating spaghetti. We heard what he was. That's your dream, Kristen. Excuse me. I do think it's really cool that he is learning a lot through all of these tragedies. Yeah, he did some serious reflecting after loss. And I think a huge part of it, I mean, we were joking about raw dogging life,

but I think that's a big part of it, was that he really faced it, he really grieved. Oh, you feel all the emotions when you're raw dog in life. And it's cool that he really took stock of what he was doing. and what he wasn't doing and decided he wanted to make changes. He did want to make changes. Essentially, J.C. Penny wanted to dive even further into helping people in any way possible. He did small things. Well, small for him anyway.

So he fully funded a public library in Hamilton, Missouri. He sent $12,000 to the American Legion for a new building in Kemmer, Wyoming, the home of his very first store. But, you know, J.C. Penny was ready to do bigger things, too. and he found one big thing, farming. While traveling across the country to visit his stores, J.C. Penny noticed that farmers were struggling. During World War I, farmers over-expanded

and took on mortgages they couldn't pay. They weren't diversifying their crops. Produce prices were plummeting. Dairy farmers were struggling with cattle that put out low averages of milk. J.C. Penny was all too familiar with these issues. He'd seen it all on his parents' farm. And he thought, if my dad were alive, he would have helped these farmers.

And J.C. Penny had the resources to help. So he got to work. First, he purchased the 720-acre Emadine Farm in Hopewell Junction, New York. It might be Emmadine Farm, but E-M-M-A-D-I-N-E. If you're wrong, I expect Emma Stakes of shame. I'm going to, I said it both ways, so I'm protected. Oh. So why did he buy a 720 acre farm? He wanted to establish a purebred Guernsey cow herd for dairy farmers. Guernsey is the breed of cow. And he felt like that breed in America was very low quality.

And he wanted to make it great again. Oh, boy. Make cattle great again. Finally, a hero emerges. And once his work was. completed, J.C. Penny planned to donate everything, the farm, the land, all the cattle on it to the University of Missouri. Wow. So how do you make cattle great again? You bring in a fucking stud, baby. Sexy times. Oh, yeah. J.C. Penny bought a prize-winning bull named Langwater

foremost. Langwater? Langwater? Langwater foremost. Well, and shouldn't you get a couple studs? I mean, This boy was a stud, dear. Well, but what I'm saying, and I know J.C. Penny's parents were first cousins, but I mean, if we're going to try to lift up this breed as a whole, we're going to need to diversify the studs. Well, you know, this bowl was pretty expensive. It cost them. It cost them $20,000, which in today's money, $380,000. Yeah, I didn't say it was cheap. I just said, you know, genetics.

Or a thing. Mm-hmm. Well, he bought that one bull, and it got busy. Langwater foremost fathered 68 daughters and 87 sons. Good grief. And that cow family had some good cow jeans, Kristen. One of his daughters set a world record producing 20,000 pounds of milk in one year. That seems like too much.

That's a lot of milk. Soon, Emmadine Farms was sending these cows to, dairy farmers across the country, which improved dairy output significantly. Okay, I'm a lot less worried about the cow incest now that I know they're being shipped off. Yeah, he's shipping them all over the country. He even sent a few to the United Kingdom to improve their dairy output, which is kind of wild because the Guernsey breed of cattle was from the United Kingdom. They were like supposed to be the experts, but J.C. Penny made an even better Guernsey cow. Oh, so he just kind of smacked him across the face. I'd try my fishing chips.

Exactly. We call them fish and freedom fries over here. That's right. J.C. Penny's work confirmed that careful herd management was extremely important in the dairy farming process. But J.C. Penny's greatest farming contributions took place in northern Florida. In 1925, J.C. Penny shocked everyone when he purchased 120,000 acres of land near Jacksonville, Florida. The price was $400,000. adjusted for inflation, $7 million. And people were like, what the hell are you doing with 120,000 acres of land?

Are you land speculating? Are you going to like split it up into subdivisions and build homes? Like, what are you doing? And J.C. Penny was like, nope, I am going to start a cooperative farming community. And I'm going to call it Penny Farms. Wow. This guy just did all kinds of stuff. Oh, yeah.

J.C. Penny wanted to help farm. farmers using the same principles he used in his retail business. Attention to detail, standardization, cooperation, education. J.C. Penny's goal was to, quote, remove the guesswork from the agricultural process. And so he wanted to recruit hardworking farmers to move to Penny farms and create their own self-supporting farms. No smoking. No drinking. You have to attend church. My God. Men who were approved would each get their own 20-acre farm, no money down, and they would pay for it at cost from the profits they made from farming.

And land speculators came in immediately, and they're like, hey, J.C. Penny, could maybe we buy some of that 120,000 acres? You know, maybe set up a little business for these farmers to buy from? And J.C. Penny was like, nope, onlyfarmers.com, baby. J.C. Penny offered the farmers extensive help. He gave them transportation, soil analysis, crop advice, educational resources, scientific analysis, equipment rentals. And if those farmers had kids, no problem. Penny Farms had a grammar school and a high school. And if a farmer decided midway through the whole experiment, this really isn't for me. J.C. Penny would refund any money they put down. No questions asked.

Wow. Now, the Penny Farms project was going to be hard. You know, the land, wasn't ideal for farming. Produce prices were dropping. The weather was unpredictable. And J.C. Penny got a lot of pushback from politicians, too. Some said that Penny Farms was a socialist experiment.

Very scary. Well, J.C. Penny replied, Shut the hell up, bitch. He brushed off that criticism. J.C. Penny said, said, cooperation, and, quote, helping others to help themselves

was just good business. That was the J.C. Penny Way. And Penny Farms took off. The first year, 40 farmers moved to Penny Farms. Only three left. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. Yeah, why not? Well, you're signing up for this. Yeah, and it's a great thing he's offering these farmers. Well, and I imagine if you're signing up for it, you don't have a lot of other great options. Yeah, that's true. If this doesn't work out, where else are you going to go? Funky town Well sure We all want to go to

Funky town But we can't live there Is the problem Damn So you got to work During the day So I assume again Only men

Right I would assume so Brought their wives Sure But I'm assuming Only white guys Right That I have no idea

I tried to find out I'm guessing It was only White guys Because otherwise This would be A really big deal Yeah

You would think It would be mentioned Yeah But I didn't find anything. What time period are we in? The 1920s. Yeah.

In Florida. Yeah. And a lot of black people, I assume, were sharecroppers at this time. So this would have been an amazing thing if it had been open to everybody, which I'm guessing it wasn't. Yeah. I really tried to find stuff. And I just. I feel a little bad because you're telling me a nice thing he did.

And I'm like, well, here's how it could have been better. No, I totally agree. If that was the case, then yeah, that sucks. But it was a good thing for these farmers. Sure. Yeah. Farmers were growing all sorts of things. Peppermint, grapes, corn, blackberries, pecanes, blueberries, oranges, potatoes.

They opened up a massive dairy and poultry farm. J.C. Penny considered the Penny Farms experiment a huge success. It was so fulfilling. He knew his parents would be proud. And so then he started thinking, what else can I do to honor my parents? How about a retirement community for the church? In 1926, J.C. Penny took 60 acres on penny farms, and he turned it into the Memorial Home Community, who was a retirement village for ministers, church workers, and missionaries.

He created it in honor of his dad, who was a Baptist minister. It cost them a million dollars to build, just for inflation, about $18 million. At the foundation lane ceremony, J.C. Penny said in a speech, Quote, all I am I owe to my father and my mother. How thankful I am for my parents and for their example. I feel that I am but carrying on the work which my father started. The next year in 1927, Penny Farms had a large enough population for the state of Florida to officially incorporate it as a town.

Kristen. Yes. Penny Farms is still around today. It's a small town, about 850 people. It's mostly known for the retirement. community, which is now called the Penny Retirement Community. Oh, wow. It's also on the National Register of Historic Places.

So people can still go and retire there? Yeah. It's like a Christian-based retirement community. Huh. Yeah. Wow. And in front of the town hall at Penny Farms is a statue of J.C. Penny. Sure.

Yeah. You know, things like Penny Farms were just one of J.C. Penny's, many incredibly charitable acts. And those acts further elevations. his celebrity status. Magazines across the United States wrote stories about J.C. Penny's life. They had titles like,

From Farm Boy to Millionaire Merchant, and The Man with a Thousand Partners. He didn't sleep with them all, but... I was going to say, he sounds like a big slut. The slut with a thousand partners. His newfound celebrity made him quite the socialite. And so, should come as no surprise. J.C. Penny found love again, Kristen.

This time it was a young woman named Caroline Bertha Ottenreith. Man. And when I say young... How young. I mean, Caroline was 20 years younger than J.C. Penny. I was afraid you were going to say 20 years old. So you really took me on a wild ride there. 20 years younger.

J.C. Penny was like 50. She'd be 30, yeah. Yuck. Caroline Otenreith was the daughter of German immigrants who were wealthy from the hotel business. She had a passion for music. She did a lot of work for the church. J.C. Penny fell head over heels. And for the third time in his life, J.C. Penny told a woman,

Caroline said yes, and in August of 1926, the two were married in Paris. Oh. A year later in 1927, they had a baby girl who they named Mary Francis Penny after J.C. Penny's mom. James Cash Penny Jr. felt whole again. Everything seemed to be coming up, J.C. Penny. Yeah. His personal life was good. He had a wife and four wonderful children.

His philanthropic life was good. He felt like he was really making a difference. He was kind of famous with famous friends. President-elect Herbert Hoover and his wife were staying at J.C. Penny's bell aisle home before inauguration day. Well, I'll be damned. And then, of course, there was his business, the J.C. Penny Company. I'll spare you all the minute details. In short, it was doing incredibly well.

In fact, they had recently opened their 500th store in a very special place, Hamilton, Missouri. All right. J.C. Penny chose the location when he learned that his old boss, John Hale, was finally retiring. Oh my gosh. So J.C. Penny bought John Hale store and he turned it into a J.C. Penny. That is wild. That is cool. Yeah. Yeah.

When I heard that, I was like, God damn, how old was John Hale? I wondered that too. And also, how wide? to have some kid work it in your store for just a little while, and then they go off and do all this. Right. That's pretty incredible. Yeah, you've got to feel pretty good as a, you know, like, yep, that's all me.

I was his boss. I taught him everything. I taught him everything he knows. Mm-hmm. During the 1920s, J.C. Penny stores kept opening up. Total sales. Kept going up. Other companies were starting to take notice.

You know, Sears Roebuck was a mail. order only business? Not anymore. They decided to start opening retail locations. Oh. Mm-mm.

Mm-hmm. And there were other competitors too, like Woolworths and Macy's, but Macy's really only had one location, but J.C. Penny

also further solidified his empire by buying out every remaining Golden Rule store in the country. Many Golden Rule store owners were

happy to accept. You know, some of them were ready to retire. Sure. Others were like, I think our store would really benefit if J.C. Penny was running it. Yeah.

J.C. Penny was especially honored to buy Tom Callahan's old stores. He wrote to his old friend, quote, In all earnestness, Mr. Callahan, I feel your life has been an inspiration to me. By the fall of 1929, the J.C. Penny Company had 1,400 stores. My God. Just a refresher. When we started this episode, J.C. Penny had three stores. I tell you have taken us through quite a journey.

He started with three stores. He's ending this with three wives. I mean, this is pretty wild. Well, that's not really a joke. I'm just observing. Yeah. This is in a period of, what, 21 years? Yeah.

Yeah. Total sales for those 1,400 stores. $209 million. adjusted for inflation, $3 billion. Good grief. The company also had $25 million cash on hand. Adjusted for inflation, they had $500 million just sitting there. They had no debt.

Well, rainy day. So, hot tub spaghetti dinner. Sure, forever. Forever. You could fund that forever. It goes without saying that the JCPenney company was doing very well. But over the next few years, it would all come crashing down. Oh.

On the next episode of an old-timey podcast. And the final episode of the J.C. Penny series, James Cash Penny Jr. navigates financial ruin during the Great Depression. Oh. Oh. The $500 million isn't going to do it. It ought to do it. Well, it'll be okay for the J.C. penny company. But what about James Cash Penny Jr.? Well, you're telling me he didn't have a penny

bank or something? And by that, I mean, a piggy bank. He made, he did some. Okay. Well, don't, well, you'll, you'll, you'll find out. Okay. Yeah. All right. Very good. Woo. Normie. See. That's a big old stuffed burger right there. I cover a lot of stuff. Man, I really enjoyed that. Yeah. That was a journey you took us on. It did, yeah. Like you said, three wives. There won't be any more wives, don't worry. I was a little worried. No, I'll go ahead and spoil this for you. You married Caroline. They were married for 45 years. Okay.

So, it's all good. Until she decided to get her tonsils removed. Oh, no. Yeah, in the 80s. Yeah. Yeah, I am pretty sure if you remove your tonsils, your asthma will go away. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Norm, well done. Well told. Thank you.

Love it. Love it. Love it. I'm excited to see how this thing ends, though. Why is that? Well, I love a story that's not just up, up, up, up. You know, I like for there to be some dips, some adversity. Sure. It's just interesting. The story had a lot of adversity for him.

Obviously, the company did really well, but like him losing his first wife, then his second wife, then his mom. Yeah, that'd be tough. Yeah, and it wasn't just as simple as work stayed the same as he went through these losses. He changed his work significantly. And that's what makes it interesting to me. Totally changed the business structure, like scaled back. Which when I read that like, yeah, he owned 55% of the shares and then he just like kept getting rid of his shares so other people could rise up. I was just like, I don't think many people would do that.

No. No. I think they would sit there and like collect their money and be like, I got mine. Yeah. Good luck. But he really was about lifting people up. Yeah, I mean, it would be a pride thing as much as a money thing. He was humble.

What were his flaws? He spent too much time volunteering. No. Come on now. Well, we'll definitely see some flaws in the next episode. Okay. You can't really talk about his flaws without going into what we're about to learn about. Yeah, obviously.

Okay. So. All right. We'll learn about it. He sounds very controlling to me. Oh, extremely. Yeah. You got it.

Yeah, he was very controlling. Yeah. So that thing of come and learn and that's great. And okay, don't drink, don't smoke. And you have to go to church. Like, that's, there's a lot of good happening there, but it's also a lot of control. Well, yeah, you have to basically live by whatever he says. Whatever daddy says.

Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Daddy. Uh-huh. Yeah. No, you hit the nail on the head. Yeah. It's a good way to put it.

Yeah, he's controlling. Okay. Mm-hmm. Norm, on a totally different note, we're wrapping this episode up. Yeah. You know, I like to read some ratings and reviews to inspire the people to head on over to their favorite podcasting app and leave us a five-star rating and review. Pretty pleased. Absolutely.

Helps us out a ton. It does. And Norm, I don't know if you've seen this, but last week's episode, we talked about the Spotify comments, how everyone's writing that Norm is a good boy and this podcast will succeed. Yeah. I think Apple podcasts, like their reviews are just delayed by a couple days because I was kind of like, huh, nobody made that joke in our Apple reviews. Well, then, boy, I waited 24 hours. It's an avalanche of Norm is a good boy, and this podcast will succeed. I tell you what, it really makes me wonder because when I'm looking at a new podcast trying to decide,

oh, do I want to give this a listen? I look at reviews. Of course. And I do not know what the F I would think if I stumbled across an independent podcast and the reviews, like multiple reviews said that one of the hosts was a good boy and that this podcast will succeed. What a weird thing that you and the listeners have done, sir. I love the chaos of it all. I think if I saw that, I would say that's a loyal fan base, and they have a lot of fun. Oh, wow.

And I think that's true. So I agree with you. So we got a lot of those. I also want to read one that I do not understand. Okay, we'll see if we can figure it out together. Here's my problem. We say stuff on this podcast, and I forget it. Okay.

Well, read it out. We'll see if I can remember. Five-star review. Username is McKay-Lameh. Title of the review is, Excellent Info. The body of the review reads, this vacuum cleaner repair podcast is very helpful.

Vacuum cleaner repair podcast. What the hell, right? I don't know what that's referencing. I have no idea what that. See, I was expecting you to be like, that's a joke we made a ball. I have no idea what this means. This vacuum cleaner repair podcast is very helpful.

His trio's help us out. I don't get that one. We appreciate the five stars. Of course. We appreciate the positivity. I have no idea what that's about. Yeah. If you're listening to this for the first time waiting for vacuum cleaner repair tips, they're not coming.

Okay. You could absolutely do that because you repaired our vacuum. I did. Yeah. So. Kristen loves our little handheld cordless. Dyson, she uses it all the time. I really do.

Sometimes it's on the fritz, though. So Normie C steps in and gets some replacement parts, gets it working and tip top shape again. Are you ready for another review? Yeah. Another five-star one. User name is Ransom 97s. Ooh, that's like an old school hotmail address. And the title is laugh while you learn.

That's the whole point of this show. Body of the review reads, a great podcast full of learning and laughs. I cannot believe Kristen's cameltoes isn't an official sponsor yet. Yeah, how's your new gene company coming along? Everyone, if you haven't heard, I am also an entrepreneur, just like J.C. Penny. I came up with a line of jeans that guarantee to give you camel toe. You want the camel toe. Oh, it's happening whether you want it to happen or not.

Weirdly, I found no investors for this business. Also, no takers. No one wants to try these jeans on. Well, you know, banks were skeptical of J.C. Penny's business model. Yeah. And so, you know, investors are a little skeptical of this idea. But as J.C. Penny's father told him, sometimes ideas take time to take hold, you know. So maybe in five years.

No, no, no, no. We don't have that kind of time. Someone else is going to come in with this idea and steal it right out for. under me. What I've done is I decided the problem was these banks, they just can't visualize these jeans. So I've been going into banks full camel toe and somehow it still doesn't work. Somehow I'm asked to leave the premises. Really? You're escorted out by a security guard. And I say, ow, ow, slowly, sir, I can barely walk in these Christians cameltoe jeans. Coming soon to a target, maybe to a target. Maybe to a target. Maybe to a

Target. I don't know. I think we're boycotting Target right now, actually. We're boycotting Target. They wish they could have these jeans. So yeah, unfortunately, my very real denim company simply cannot afford to sponsor this podcast. Damn. Well, I wish you luck in your business venture. I want no part of it. Oh, wow. Well, now are you making, does Kristen's camel toes make jeans for men? Yeah, Kristen's moose knuckles. Oh, excellent. then I will be investing. Oh, thank you. I just love showing off my moose knuckle in the local mall, you know.

Yeah, yeah, you're never asked to leave. Everyone's doing it. Uh, Norm, should we wrap this up? Let's do it. You know what they say about history, hoes. We always cite our sources. That's right. For this episode, I got my information from The Books.

Creating an American Institution, the merchandising genius of J.C. Penny by Mary Elizabeth Curry. J.C. Penny, The Man, The Store, and American Agriculture by David Kruger. And 50 Years with the Golden Rule by James Cash Penny Jr. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to an old-timey podcast. Please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're at it, subscribe. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast.

Join the Reddit community, R. slash old-timey podcast. Follow us on Facebook and YouTube and Instagram. at Old Timey Podcast. You can also follow us individually on Instagram. She is the lovely Kristen Pitts Caruso. Oh, hey. I go by a gaming historian, and until next time, Tudaloo, Tata, and Cheerio. Bye.

Bye.