SUMMARY

David Delbert Kruger, Agricultural Research & Instruction Librarian at the University of Wyoming, captures the life of entrepreneur and retail giant in his biography of J. C. Penney: The Man, The Store, and American Agriculture. Kruger illuminates this entrepreneur’s humble beginnings as a poor farm boy, an identity he never lost, and traces the story of his creating and sharing wealth. From his humble rural upbringing not only did he start JCPenney, the first nationwide department store chain, but he also improved cattle breeding and farms all throughout America. In spite of many setbacks, J. C. Penney was able to live an enthusiastic, largely successful life for the better part of a hundred years.

KEY POINTS

• The Golden Rule, a principle he increasingly embraced over time, served as J. C. Penney’s “North Star” to the very end of his life.
• In his early years, when he was required to earn money to buy his own clothes, his father taught him to never put people before profits.
• Christian business principles soaked in deep, becoming official company policy.
• His honest way of dealing with people and helping them make money spanned to communities, suppliers, and even competitors.
• Penney’s heart was always in farming but didn’t feel cut out for it, mostly because of his poor health. Instead, he became the means of generating wealth for rural America.
• Breeding Guernsey cows was his response to the grossly inferior American livestock holding back families from having a better life. Furthermore, having a cow on a farm gave farmers potential year-round income, minimizing risk for the rural family.
• Integrity and efficiency were hallmarks of both his retail and agricultural projects.
• Penney had the ability to dive deep into and operate several operations concurrently.
• After a close scrape with debilitating deep depression, Penney had a miraculous healing experience and renewed faith in God, which painted his life forever after.
• Penney balanced great generosity with a fierce belief in self-sufficiency, never missing a chance to help someone willing to help himself.
• Giving gratuities seemed patronizing to J. C. Penney.
• His humility was evident in the way he forged relationships with the common worker, mentored young boys, and took public transportation.
• Free-market capitalism can elevate others and leave the world better than you found it.

QUOTES FROM KRUGER

• “The world isn’t simply about you making money; it’s about other people.”
• “He felt if he could offer honest value to…customers, [they] would trust you and…would come back.”
• “Mr. Penney was very much about partnerships—mutually beneficial partnerships that weren’t one-sided. It gave people the opportunity to move up through the business that he had created and to share in its success rather than just simply being an employee.”
• “Not all his endeavors were designed to make a profit; they were designed to have a positive impact.”
• “On the surface, some people thought he was less than benevolent because he didn’t believe in blanket charity.”
• “You can be a good man or a good woman and still ‘finish first.’ You don’t have to compromise your principles in order to be successful.”

BUY J. C. Penney: The Man, the Store, and American Agriculture by David Delbert Kruger

RECOMMENDATION

Read “The Cowboy Capitalist,” a book review of Kruger’s biography in The Wall Street Journal.

DEDICATION 

To Ken Woolley, Janet's brother-in-law who has many striking similarities to J. C. Penney.

If you don’t have time to watch or listen to the entire talk but would like to get a sense of who Ken Woolley is, start at 11:30.

Utah State Dean's Convocation Speech by Ken Woolley

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