54: JC Penney Was a Hustler! (Part 2)

An Old Timey Podcast

True Crime, History, Comedy

4.9 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2025

⏱️ 97 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Say what you will about James Cash Penney Jr. Just don’t say he didn’t work his booty off. After he left his hometown, James tried desperately to succeed as a businessman. He found work as a sales person. He bought a struggling butcher shop/bakery. With each effort came failure.

Then he discovered a new kind of business. It was called the Golden Rule Dry Goods Store. The store featured low-priced goods in a clean environment. The store owners treated their customers with respect. James went to the store, hoping to be hired. He knew that if he could get his foot in the door, he’d one day find success.

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.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Norman Caruso. And I'm Kristen Caruso.
0:07.9	And on this episode, it's part two of my series on J.C. Penny.
0:12.0	Woo! Oh my gosh. Norm, the reviews are in. People are surprisingly excited about J.C. Penny.
0:20.4	Maybe a little too excited. No kidding.
0:23.3	I think everyone has been wearing their Arizona jeans, putting on their St. John's Bay's finest,
0:30.0	and they are ready for this series. I said, for far too long, no one has talked about J.C. Penny.
0:39.1	My time has come.
0:41.3	Yeah, thank you all for the kind feedback on part one.
0:46.1	Very excited to tell you the rest of this story.
0:48.7	We've gotten a lot of comments that say,
0:52.1	Norm is a good boy, and this podcast is doing well.
0:55.0	So people are doing their homework, you know?
0:58.0	Yeah. Seems kind of silly that you assign that as homework to people.
1:02.0	And yet here we are, ready to learn more about the man, the myth, the legend,
1:07.0	the legend, J.C. Penny.
1:08.0	He will be a legend no more after the series. What do you? Oh, no. Well, he won't be a legend no more after this series what do you oh no well he won't be a
1:14.1	legend because like you'll know the story it's like the truth oh i thought you norm i thought secret
1:19.8	nazi that's what i thought when you oh god no yeah you okay well no sorry sorry did i get
1:26.8	like maybe i'm not saying the definition of legend.
1:30.3	Yeah, I feel like you might want to hit up Webster's for the definition of legend.
1:34.3	And while you do that, I should plug our Patreon.
1:37.8	Our legendary Patreon.
	...

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