Constellation Similarity Assertions

J.C. Penney, merchant and chain store executive, was born James Cash Penney, Jr., in Caldwell County, Missouri, the son of James Cash Penney, Sr., a farmer, minister, and civic leader, and Mary Frances Paxton. Three years after Penney was born, his family (which included twelve children) moved from their farm on 390 acres to Hamilton, a nearby town of 2,000 residents on the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad. They continued raising cattle and food on the farm and began participating in Hamilton’s social, business, and political activities. Residing in town also made it easier for the children to attend high school, and Penney’s parents, who graduated from private academies, wanted their children to be well educated. Penney’s formative years were influenced by this combination of farm labor and involvement in town activities, by his family’s religious and political principles, and by his family’s financial difficulties.

After Penney graduated from Hamilton Public High School in 1893 he wanted to attend college, but his parents could not afford the extra expense. He worked on the family farm for two years until his father asked a Hamilton merchant to teach him the dry goods business. J.C. Penney, Sr., who ran unsuccessfully as a Populist candidate for the U.S. Congress in 1894, was pessimistic about his son’s future in farming. The new endeavor was a good match. Soon Penney was the most successful clerk at the J. M. Hale & Bros. store and was saving money to open his own store.

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