Ben Franklin is a chain of

five and dime A variety store (also five and dime (historic), pound shop, or dollar store) is a retail store that sells general merchandise, such as apparel, automotive parts, dry goods, toys, hardware, home furnishings, and a selection of groceries. It ...

and

arts and crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

stores found primarily in small towns throughout the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, currently owned by Promotions Unlimited of

Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin :''There is also the Mount Pleasant, Green County, Wisconsin, Town of Mount Pleasant in Green County, Wisconsin, Green County.'' Mount Pleasant is a village in Racine County, Wisconsin, United States. It is located approximately south of Milwauke ...

. They are organized using a

franchise Franchise may refer to: Business and law * Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees * Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...

system, with individual stores owned by independent proprietors. It was perhaps the first

retail Retail is the sale of goods and Service (economics), services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturing, manufacturers, dire ...

franchise, starting in 1927. They are named after

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading int ...

, taking a cue in their merchandise offerings from Franklin's saying, "A penny saved is a penny earned."

History

Origins

The chain originated in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

in 1877 as

Butler Brothers Butler Brothers was a retailer and wholesale supplier based in Chicago. It was founded in 1877 as a mail-order company by Charles Hamblet Butler, George H. Butler and Edward Burgess Butler. History In the 1920s, Butler Brothers moved into retai ...

, a mail-order wholesaler selling general and variety-store items. At the turn of the 20th century, Butler Brothers had over 100,000 customers in the

. As variety stores were penetrating their market, the company founded the Ben Franklin chain in 1927, which was sold in 1959. At Ben Franklin's peak, the chain had 2,500 stores nationwide.

Sam Walton Samuel Moore Walton (March 29, 1918 – April 5, 1992) was an American business magnate best known for founding the retailers Walmart and Sam's Club, which he started in 1962 and 1983 respectively. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. grew to be the world's ...

, who later became the founder of

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

, started in retailing operating a Ben Franklin store. In 1973, Michael J. Dupey converted a Ben Franklin store to start the

Michaels Michaels Stores, Inc., more commonly known as Michaels, is a privately held chain of 1,252 American and Canadian arts and crafts stores, as of January 2021. It is one of North America's largest providers of arts, crafts, framing, floral and wall ...

chain in Texas. Ben Franklin Stores purchased Texas retailer Duke & Ayres in the early 1970s. Duke & Ayres was a chain of 5 and 10 cent stores based in

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...

, with stores that were located throughout the state from approximately 1910 to 1990. In the 1970s, Ben Franklin operated some Ben Franklin Family Center locations, which were larger

discount store A discount store or discounter offers a retail format in which products are sold at prices that are in principle lower than an actual or supposed "full retail price". Discounters rely on bulk purchasing and efficient distribution to keep down cost ...

variations offering merchandise not found at regular Ben Franklin stores, such as clothing. Other locations in this era were branded as B&C Family Center and included supermarkets.

Bankruptcy

The chain had functioned largely as a wholesaler of variety and craft merchandise sold to its franchisees under the name Ben Franklin Retail Stores Inc. In the early 1990s, it began opening its own stores. Those stores were not successful, and their financial problems ultimately interfered with the chain's ability to deliver goods to its franchisees, 860 locally owned stores in 47 states. The company went bankrupt and closed these stores in 1996–1997.

True Value In statistics, as opposed to its general use in mathematics, a parameter is any measured quantity of a statistical population that summarises or describes an aspect of the population, such as a mean or a standard deviation. If a population exa ...

owner Cotter & Co. sold its V&S Variety Store chain to Ben Franklin in 1995.

Promotions Unlimited

Promotions Unlimited had stepped in as a supplier for many Ben Franklin franchisees during the corporation's descent into bankruptcy. It acquired the name of the chain in 1997 as the old corporate entity was moving into Chapter 7. It continued operating as a distributor servicing individual franchisees and advertising the products sold there through direct mail services and newspaper inserts. The chain comprises about 209 craft stores and 123

variety store A variety store (also five and dime (historic), pound shop, or dollar store) is a retail store that sells general merchandise, such as apparel, automotive parts, dry goods, toys, hardware, home furnishings, and a selection of groceries. It u ...

s, the latter being akin to

s. Promotions Unlimited provided similar advertising and promotional services for thousands of other retail stores unaffiliated with Ben Franklin Stores. Promotions Unlimited went bankrupt in 2017.Failed Promotions Unlimited saga ends
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Citations

General and cited references

* Sandra S. Vance and Roy V. Scott. "Butler Brothers and the Rise and Decline of the Ben Franklin Stores: A Study in Franchise Retailing." ''Essays in Economic and Business History: Selected Papers from the Economic and Business Historical Society'', East Lansing: Division of Research, Graduate School of Business, Michigan State University 11 (1993), pp. 258-271
Mexia Blackcats 1959: Duke & Ayres

External links

* {{Commons category inline, Ben Franklin stores Five and dimes Arts and crafts retailers Discount stores of the United States Franchises Companies based in Wisconsin American companies established in 1927 Retail companies established in 1927 1927 establishments in Wisconsin