2014 Reprint of 1957 Revised Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Woolworth founded an international financial empire with a short lease on a tiny store, a couple of gross of tin cans and a simple but revolutionary idea. Woolworth grew up a poor farm boy who tended his father's cows barefoot, but he followed the great American dream by parlaying native ingenuity, business sense, and understanding of people into a huge fortune and establishing an institution that became a familiar part of America's way of life, The Five and Ten.