The S.S. Kresge Company corporate records are arranged topically, and primarily relate to the company's activities in the years 1945-1965. To trace the company's history from 1912-1945, the researcher should use the applicable annual and quarterly reports, the minutes from Meetings and Proceedings of Directors, Shareholders, and Incorporators, and materials from the historical files. The latter contain interesting periodicals and company pamphlets that pertain to the company's history both before and after 1945.
For the postwar years, the researcher should turn again to the annual and quarterly reports, meetings and proceedings minutes, and historical files, but should supplement them with use of minutes from the Executive and Operating Committees, and Sebastian Kresge's correspondence with the company president for the years 1953-1966. The minutes from the Executive Committee almost always contain brief summaries of committee decisions. Property purchases, modernization and construction programs, divided action, personnel (retirements and salaries), and tax matters comprise the majority of areas in which the committee made decisions. Minutes are not available for every meeting of the committee, but there are often notations at the top of existing minutes which indicate that for certain meetings no written record was kept.
The minutes from Operating Committee meetings reflect the postwar concerns with competition from discount stores and the need to increase Kresge sales and merchandise turnover. They are particularly detailed for the years 1945-1950, but thereafter are somewhat frustrating in that the writer often discusses what topics were covered at the meetings but fails to summarize the contents of the discussions. There are included with the minutes occasional reports made by the President and other officers to the committee on various topics. These are particularly interesting; see, for example, the 1946 and 1961 reports on sales problems and new programs. The quantity of minutes from 1959-1963 is considerably smaller than that from earlier years because President Cunningham relied on contacts with individual regional managers and department heads rather than group meetings.
The files of correspondence between Sebastian Kresge, founder of the company and chairman of the board from 1925-1966, and company presidents Frank Williams and Harry Cunningham are very useful for tracking the continued involvement of Kresge in the corporation's affairs, and for documenting major corporate concerns and operations. Among the latter are organizational changes, competition from discount and other variety-type stores, deteriorating downtown store neighborhoods, attempts to purchase competitors Kress and Zayre, trial programs to establish a Kresge credit program for its customers, and the emergence of the K mart idea. There is a limited amount of such correspondence (2"), but it is quite rich in content.
Signs on the front of the first S.S. Kresge store, opened in 1899 in Detroit, read "BIG 5 and 10c STORE CROCKERY HOUSE FURNISHINGS NOTHING OVER 10 CENTS IN STORE." It was owned by Sebastian S. Kresge, a resourceful, hardworking man of Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, who had first seen the potential for such stores when he worked as a traveling tinware salesman in the 1890s. One of his customers was Frank Woolworth, who had opened the first 5 & 10c store in 1875. Kresge was anxious to become involved in the dime store industry, and did so with the savings he had accumulated during his traveling salesman days. By 1912, he owned a chain of 85 dime stores and incorporated in Delaware as the S.S. Kresge Company. After reincorporating four years later in Michigan, Kresge's company went on to become the second largest chain of its kind in the world and in 1966, the year the founder died, had over 900 outlets.
The dime store industry had its heyday in the years around World War I, but thereafter inflation began to make the selling of goods at a dime less feasible. In the 1930s and 1940s, Kresge dime stores became Kresge variety stores, in which a much wider choice of goods was offered for sale prices that ranged up to $100. By 1950, that portion of the retail market that had formerly been serviced by dime stores was primarily serviced by variety stores.
In the 1950s, the variety store industry was confronted with two major problems: the growth of suburbs and its effect on downtown neighborhood stores, and the emergence of discount department stores. Variety store sales dropped alarmingly, particularly during the years 1955-1960, and companies tried to devise ways of counteracting the downward spiral. S.S. Kresge Company began to open more and more new stores in the suburbs and, recognizing the new trend toward and cost advantages of self-service, converted many existing stores. It carefully studied its discount competitors, and in the early 1960s, made the decision to enter the field itself. The first K mart store opened in 1962 and was so successful that by 1966 there were 122 stores. In addition, the company created the Jupiter Discount Division which was responsible for the conversion of older variety stores that were experiencing financial difficulty into outlets that sold a limited range of fast-selling goods. The K mart, Jupiter, and S.S. Kresge variety stores combined led to record sales and profits for the company as it became the fastest growing of the major U.S. retailers.
