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This Month in Business History

February

The Pictorial News Company, NY. [View of Woolworth Building and surrounding buildings, New York City] c1913. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Woolworth's Five and Dime

It was 1878 and Frank Winfield Woolworth was working in a general store. The 5-cent merchandise table was set up and staffed by Frank. As he assisted the customers that crowded around the table, Frank resolved to start a store of his own stocked only with 5-cent merchandise.


The Flint, Michigan, Sit-Down Strike

Once called "the strike heard round the world," the first major labor dispute in the U.S. auto industry ended after General Motors signed a contract with the United Auto Workers Union on February 11, 1937.


First Bank of the United States Chartered

The first Bank of the United States was chartered for a term of twenty years, by the United States Congress on February 25, 1791.