Harold Alfond
Harold Alfond (March 6, 1914 – November 16, 2007) was an American businessman who founded the Dexter Shoe Company, established the first factory outlet store and was a minority owner of the Boston Red Sox. Early life Alfond was born in Swampscott, Massachusetts, on March 6, 1914, the son of Russian immigrants Simon and Rose Alfond. Harold, his brother David, and four sisters, Anne, Bertha, Gladys and Grace, grew up in Swampscott and attended Swampscott schools. In high school, Harold was an outstanding athlete and developed his passion for sports. Founding Dexter Shoes After graduating from high school in 1934, Alfond got a job at Kesslen Shoe Company in Kennebunk, Maine, where his father worked. In a short time, he rose from odd shoe boy to factory superintendent. In 1940, Alfond and his father bought a shoe factory in Norridgewock, Maine, and founded Norrwock Shoe Company. They sold the company to Shoe Corp. of America for $1 million in 1944 and Simon Alfond stayed on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Swampscott, Massachusetts
Swampscott () is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located up the coast from Boston in an area known as the North Shore. The population was 15,111 as of the 2020 United States census. A former summer resort on Massachusetts Bay, Swampscott is today a fairly affluent residential community and includes the village of Beach Bluff, as well as part of the neighborhood of Clifton. History The area in and around Swampscott, Massachusetts has been inhabited by indigenous people for 12,000 years. Prior to European colonization, the town was inhabited by members of the Naumkeag, Pennacook, and Pawtucket groups and Massachusett tribe. They spoke an Eastern Algonquin language, and the Pawtucket migrated seasonally throughout the eastern coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. It's estimated that 50-100 indigenous individuals resided in the Swampscott area at the time of European colonization. A series of epidemics following European settlement, including small ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sears, Roebuck And Company
Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears ( ), is an American chain of department stores and online retailer founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began as a mail-order catalog company migrating to opening retail locations in 1925, the first in Chicago. Through the 1980s, Sears was the largest retailer in the United States. In 2005, the company was bought by the management of the American big box discount chain Kmart, which upon completion of the merger, formed Sears Holdings. In 2018, it was the 31st-largest. After several years of declining sales, Sears' parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. It announced on January 16, 2019, that it had won its bankruptcy auction, and that a reduced number of 425 stores would remain open, including 223 Sears stores. Sears was based in the Sears Tower in Chicago from 1973 until moving out to Hof ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Foundation Center
Candid is an information service specializing in reporting on U.S. nonprofit companies. In 2016, its database provided information on 2.5 million organizations. It is the product of the February 2019 merger of GuideStar with Foundation Center. The organization maintains comprehensive databases on grantmakers and their grants; issues a wide variety of print, electronic, and online information resources; conducts and publishes research on trends in foundation growth, giving, and practice; and offers education and training programs. History GuideStar Formation–1997 GuideStar was one of the first central sources of information on U.S. nonprofits and is the world's largest source of information about nonprofit organizations. GuideStar also serves to verify that a recipient organization is established and that donated funds go where the donor intended for individuals looking to give in the wake of disasters. Guidestar was founded by Arthur "Buzz" Schmidt in Williamsburg, Virginia ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Harold Alfond Foundation
Harold may refer to: People * Harold (given name), including a list of persons and fictional characters with the name * Harold (surname), surname in the English language * András Arató, known in meme culture as "Hide the Pain Harold" Arts and entertainment * ''Harold'' (film), a 2008 comedy film * ''Harold'', an 1876 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson * ''Harold, the Last of the Saxons'', an 1848 book by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton * ''Harold or the Norman Conquest'', an opera by Frederic Cowen * ''Harold'', an 1885 opera by Eduard Nápravník * Harold, a character from the cartoon ''The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy'' *Harold & Kumar, a US movie; Harold/Harry is the main actor in the show. Places ;In the United States * Alpine, Los Angeles County, California, an erstwhile settlement that was also known as Harold * Harold, Florida, an unincorporated community * Harold, Kentucky, an unincorporated community * Harold, Missouri, an unincorporated community ; ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was established in London in 1851 by Paul Reuter. The Thomson Corporation of Canada acquired the agency in a 2008 corporate merger, resulting in the formation of the Thomson Reuters Corporation. In December 2024, Reuters was ranked as the 27th most visited news site in the world, with over 105 million monthly readers. History 19th century Paul Julius Reuter worked at a book-publishing firm in Berlin and was involved in distributing radical pamphlets at the beginning of the Revolutions of 1848. These publications brought much attention to Reuter, who in 1850 developed a prototype news service in Aachen using homing pigeons and electric telegraphy from 1851 on, in order to transmit messages between Brussels and Aachen, in what today is Aa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Warren Buffett
Warren Edward Buffett ( ; born August 30, 1930) is an American investor and philanthropist who currently serves as the chairman and CEO of the conglomerate holding company Berkshire Hathaway. As a result of his investment success, Buffett is one of the best-known investors in the world. According to ''Forbes'', as of May 2025, Buffett's estimated net worth stood at US$160.2 billion, making him the fifth-richest individual in the world. Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska. The son of U.S. congressman and businessman Howard Buffett, he developed an interest in business and investing during his youth. He entered the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1947 before graduating from the University of Nebraska at 20. He went on to graduate from Columbia Business School, where he molded his investment philosophy around the concept of value investing pioneered by Benjamin Graham. He attended New York Institute of Finance to focus on his economics background and soon ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Berkshire Hathaway
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Originally a textile manufacturer, the company transitioned into a conglomerate starting in 1965 under the management of chairman and CEO Warren Buffett and vice chairman Charlie Munger (from 1978 to 2023). Greg Abel now oversees most of the company's investments and has been named as Buffett's successor. Buffett personally owns 38.4% of the Class A voting shares of Berkshire Hathaway, representing a 15.1% overall economic interest in the company. The company is often compared to an investment fund; between 1965, when Buffett gained control of the company, and 2023, the company's shareholder returns amounted to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.8% compared to a 10.2% CAGR for the S&P 500. However, in the 10 years ending in 2023, Berkshire Hathaway produced a CAGR of 11.8% for shareholders, compared to a 12.0% CAGR for the S&P 500. From 1965 to 20 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Retail Chain
A chain store or retail chain is a retail outlet in which several locations share a brand, Management, central management and standardized business practices. They have come to dominate many retail markets, dining markets, and service categories in many parts of the world. A franchising, franchise retail establishment is one form of a chain store. In 2005, the world's largest retail chain, Walmart, became the world's largest corporation based on gross sales. History In 1792, Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna established WHSmith, W.H. Smith as a news vending business in London that would become a national concern in the mid-19th century under the management of their grandson William Henry Smith (1825–1891), William Henry Smith. The world's oldest national retail chain, the firm took advantage of the History of rail transport in Great Britain#1830–1922: Early development, railway boom during the Industrial Revolution by opening news-stands at railway stations beginning in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Outlet Mall
An outlet store, factory outlet or factory store is a brick and mortar or online store where manufacturers sell their merchandise directly to the public. Products at outlet stores are usually sold at reduced prices compared to regular stores due to being overstock, Closeout (sale), closeout, Product return, returned, factory seconds, or lower-quality versions manufactured specifically for outlets. Traditionally, a factory outlet was a store attached to a factory or warehouse, sometimes allowing customers to watch the production process, such as in the original L.L. Bean store. In modern usage, outlet stores are typically manufacturer-branded stores such as Gap (clothing retailer), Gap or Bon Worth grouped together in outlet Shopping mall, malls. The invention of the factory outlet store is often credited to Harold Alfond, founder of the Dexter Shoe Company. History Outlets first appeared in the eastern United States in the 1930s. Factory stores started to offer damaged or exc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Skowhegan
Skowhegan () is the county seat of Somerset County, Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 8,620. Every August, Skowhegan hosts the annual Skowhegan State Fair, the oldest continuously held state fair in the United States. Skowhegan was originally inhabited by the indigenous Abenaki people who named the area Skowhegan, meaning "watching place or fish" and were mostly dispersed by the end of the 4th Anglo-Abenaki War. History Original inhabitants For thousands of years prior to European settlement, this region of Maine was the territory of the Kinipekw (later known as Kennebec) Norridgewock tribe of Abenaki. The Norridgewock village was located on the land now known as Madison. The Abenaki relied on agriculture (corn, beans, and squash) for a large part of their diet, supplemented by hunting, fishing, and the gathering of wild foods. The Skowhegan Falls (which have since been replaced by the Weston Dam) descended 28 feet over a half-mile on the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Factory Second
Factory seconds, also known as factory rejects or simply seconds, are retail items that, through minor fault of manufacture, are sold to the public for a reduced rate, rather than being discarded. The goods are often resold at this lower rate after failing the factory's quality inspection, being returned to the manufacturer's factory by the original retailer, or (less frequently) being returned to the retailer or wholesaler by the customer.What are factory seconds? , ''factoryseconds.org.uk'' Retrieved 24 September 2013. The amount of damage or fault in the manufacture that may constitute an item being resold as a second varies widely; in clothing, for example, it may simply refer to a single pulled thread or mis-sewn seam, whereas in a set of items (such as [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of the longest-running newspapers in the United States, the ''Times'' serves as one of the country's Newspaper of record, newspapers of record. , ''The New York Times'' had 9.13 million total and 8.83 million online subscribers, both by significant margins the List of newspapers in the United States, highest numbers for any newspaper in the United States; the total also included 296,330 print subscribers, making the ''Times'' the second-largest newspaper by print circulation in the United States, following ''The Wall Street Journal'', also based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' is published by the New York Times Company; since 1896, the company has been chaired by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, whose current chairman and the paper's publ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |