February 25, 2025 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, grabbing a basket while grocery shopping may seem second nature today, but the idea was once groundbreaking. And that was far from the only thing that changed when Piggly Wiggly—the first modern American supermarket—opened over 100 years ago. Mike Freeman is the author of Clarence Saunders & the Founding of Piggly Wiggly: The Rise and Fall of a Memphis Maverick.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue here with our American stories scramming a basket.
While grocery shopping may seem second nature today, but the
idea was once groundbreaking, and that was far from the
only thing that changed when Pigley Wiggley, the first modern
American supermarket, opened over one hundred years ago. On September sixth,
(00:30):
nineteen sixteen, hundreds of curious shoppers came out for the
opening of a new grocery store at seventy nine Jefferson
Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, and we broadcast here in Oxford, Mississippi.
Memphis is only one hour practically due north. For weeks
they'd seen billboards and read newspaper ads about this grocery
store with the funny name that promised an entirely new
(00:53):
shopping experience, one that would, according to its owner, forever
change the retail grocery business. Greg Hangler sat down with
Mike Freeman. You're the location of that first Piggley Wiggily
in downtown Memphis. Mike Freeman is the author of Clarence
Saunders and the Founding of Piggy Wiggily, The Rise and
Fall of a Memphis Maverick.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I took a job at a restaurant downtown Memphis that
happened to be at seventy nine Jefferson and that was
the first location of the Pigmywigbley store. It was an
interesting fact though I became interested in that. My employer
wanted me to do some research because he was curious
as well. You know what happened in the building. It's
(01:33):
such it's important to know what Saunders did differently was
in the old days, if you went into a store
to shop, you couldn't just reach out and pick out
your own grocery. You had the clerks do that for you.
So you had to wait for them to you tell
the clark what you want and then they would bring
it to you. And Saunders thought, well, this is really slow,
(01:56):
this is so inefficient. And all this tied in with
Rand advertised before the tournament. Sature he had all these
brands we still recognized, Kellogg Cereal, Van Camp, Pork and Beans.
All these companies were selling their products and stores and
Saunders knew, well, you don't need a clerk to tell
(02:17):
you what cereal you like? You like Kellogg Cereal, there
it is, you get it yourself. Most important thing to
him is I could sell more groceries, less costs, I
pay fewer people. Saunders grew up from a family that
was poor. In fact, there's one story that a neighbor
(02:38):
bought Clarens a pair of shoes, and then when Saunders
had money later in life, he we sent a check
to that family for a number of years because they
helped him out and then he really needed it. So
he knew what it was like to suffer, you're to
live in hardship, and he carried that with him, you know,
(02:58):
he that probably motivated him as much as he sings
to do something. Saunders became a traveling salesman for wholesale company,
so he would call upon grocers and Saunders developed the
reputation from being a bit brash. He would go into
a store and he would tell the store owner says,
(03:20):
you know, you would sell more vegetables if you displayed
them this way is the way you had it, And
some thought, well, what does this guy know? Well, not
everybody appreciated his advice, but it shows that he was
already thinking about, you know, we'll trying ways to do
things have been better than before. There wasn't a man
in Memphis who built a chain of stores, mister Bauers stores,
(03:45):
and they were small corner of grocery stores. But every
Bowers store looked exactly the same as the UH signs
on the front and the layout of the store where
the grocers were placed. So each Bower store or was identical.
And that was an innovation too. If you went from
one store to the other, you know exactly where to
(04:08):
find what you wanted to buy because everything was in
the same place, despite you know, in different locations. And
Saunders Uh, he absorbed these ideas. That's the principal chain store.
Everything is alike as much as it conven So if
you're comfortable with what they do, then you'll shop at
chain store, no matter where that location was. So you
(04:31):
could go into a town where you unfamiliar to you
and find your favorite and grocery, you know, whatever the
business is, or Starbucks that matter, they get exactly what
you want. And that's the whole principal Chase or Bowers
did that before. Saunders so clearly learned from Bowers how
to manage a chain store business. The one thing that
(04:54):
Bowers did not do was arranged things customers to tick
out themselves, so you still had clerks and Saunders thought
this was inefficient way of doing things, and he was
kind of sarcastic. He says, you know, and a store
(05:14):
is not very busy, the poor customer can't get the
attention to a clerk because they're busy, goofed off of
the back crew. He said that that happens, or they're
so busy, like during Christmas season, you know, everyone's shopping
in the store, so busy they can't handle the orders.
The arrangement of the store the Bowers and the older
(05:37):
merchants had was as he walked up to a counter,
and once you had your clerk's attention, you would rattle
off what you wanted and then he would go about
the the rest of the store picking out the items
you wanted and bring them to the front, and then
you would transact business. Then then off you go. And
(05:58):
Saunders thought, well, you know, they don't need a clerk
to tell them that Campbell's soup is good, or we
just put it on a shelf that can find it themselves.
He took this journey to Terre Haute, Indiana to look
at a store that he was told was unique and
designs differently, and he came back a bit disappointed. It
(06:22):
wasn't really anything special at all. And Saunders told the
story off and he said, on the way back, he
saw this mother pig at a farm and he saw
all these piglets trying to feed off the mother pig.
And it invited in with customers trying to attract inching
of a clerk. And then the idea that popped in
(06:43):
his head. He had the name Pigley Wingley just from
seeing this pig. Okay, that's the name. And then he
went about designing, well, how would we get to actually
do this. We'd have to practically rebuild the interior of
a store to change its self service. Tigley Wiggley, you know,
that was his name, and uh it was a very
(07:05):
unusual name, and I think it was perfect for what
he was trying to do because he's being different. And
then he would he began writing advertisements where Pigley Wiggily
became a character. Tickley Wiggley goes to town. You know,
Tigley Wiggley does this, uh, and so you know that's
how he built his uh forehand identity. He made a
(07:27):
story out of imaginary pig that went shopping. I read
part of one is Tigley Wiggily. Ain't that a funny name?
A fellow that got up that name must have a
screw loose somewhere. All this may be so, but Piggy
Wiggily knows its own business best, and his business will
(07:48):
be this to have no store coourse gab and smirked
while folks are standing around ten deep waded dog. Every
customer will be her own clerk. So if she wants
to talk to a can of tomatoes and kill her time,
all right, and well, the scenes likely this would be
a mighty loadsome chat. Saunders addressed customer fears. You know,
(08:15):
it used to be if you went in certain stores
in the old days, and you know, the clerk might
put his thumb on the scale, so you'd pay extra
for tomatoes or potatoes or whatever, or they'd sell you
food that was out of date. And Saunders thought all
that was just just raw. It was just not good business.
(08:37):
You could sell more groceries just by being honest. He
was very proud of. He talked a lot about labeling
prices on everything. So if you walk in, you go
to the can soup aisle, you know exactly what the
price of that soup is. And it didn't matter what
store you're in one of his stores, they all things
(09:00):
about the same and it didn't matter who you were
or whether the clerk knew you or not, and got
the same prize.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
When we come back, more of Mike Freeman telling the
story of Clarence Saunders, the founder of Pigley Wigglely. Here
on our American stories, and we continue with our American
(09:40):
stories and with author Mike Freeman telling the story of
Pigley Wiggily and its founder Clarence Saunders. Let's continue with Mike.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
He knew he was taking a less profit. He probably
had people in the grocery business said it wouldn't can't
make any money. You're not selling high of We're not
making enough profit. But he was the king of a volume,
you know, and you can open. The more stores you open,
the more volume you have. You know. One of the
benefits of self service is you were you are selling
more goods per day and that helps eliminate the problem
(10:17):
of spoiled food or expired for And Saunders was aware
of that, and he would advertise to people say this
is what I'm doing. I'm gonna treat you fair. I mean,
now you can't imagine going in the store not having
a label on it, so this is thirty two cents
or whatever. Can't imagine it. But before, you know, in
(10:39):
the twentieth century, that was commonplate you when once you
label everything, then no grocery store can hide. His competitors
were thinking, oh, oh, you know, it has to do
something different. You know, he proved right there with that
first year that he had about eight or nine stores
in Memphis and Bowers at over forty and he outsold
(11:02):
Bower stores simply because he made it easier for people
to shop, and they just start swarming into this. To
Peggy Wiggless, you know, he's one of those rare individuals
that has an idea that work and that transformed part
of our society. Oh. I don't say he's as great
(11:23):
as Henry Ford, but you know Ford decided, well, why
can't we put an engine in this little carriage and
then hook it up to some wheels and then we
don't need a horse and bug any Well, we have
a car changed the world. Solidays isn't of that level
of success, but I think he had the same mind
where he thought, well, let's do something a little different here.
(11:45):
You know, the old ways are, Yeah, we can do
a little faster, a little bit better than that. And
then that's what pigleg was grocery stores version of the
model T That's interesting is the next year year he
started franchise and he actually filed for several patents, several
(12:06):
pats but he started selling the idea that well, uh,
you guys down at Arkansas and this is in you
can build a thigure with it. You know, there's towns
all over the South that were large enough to sport
a couple of grocery store. And then that proceeded very rapidly,
showing franchises all over the place. You could argue that
(12:27):
the founder of Walmart did virtually the same thing. He
put a Walmart and medium sized towns. You know, the
town doesn't have a Walmart. It is kind of not
a towent. But having a store like that in your community,
hiring the local folks to work in the store, probably
manage the store. It built a loyalty for that brand
(12:50):
for Walmart still exists. The difference between Walden and Saunders,
as Walt and never lost his visits, he held on
to him where I think Saunders had a lot of
the same attitudes, same personality. In some way he wanted
to be that champion, but in the end he didn't
keep that business long enough. Right now, most people don't
(13:10):
know Saunder's in Saunders achieved a level of celebrity and
wealth that must people only dream of. He's most famous for.
The Pig Palace is a building. I don't know how
many's square feeted well, they've added on to it, but
a majority of that thirty six housand square feet is
(13:30):
what he built. It was to have a swimming pool
and have everything a rich person would walk. Saunders tried
to outsmart traders of Wall Street, and to explain it simply,
he didn't realize they wrote the rules of trade. There
was no governing agency overseeing financial trade that we have now.
(13:56):
It was whatever certain people Wall Street decided to do
is what was done. They made the rules among themselves.
I have trouble sometimes describing a short cell as just
a stock maneuver where different people in the financial business
(14:17):
spread rumors at the companies in trouble that stocks of
what not worth what it's listing at now, and Saunders
thought that was horrible. I think the wiggle they had
over expanded and there was a franchiser or two that
had gone background, and that was all the trigger that
these short sellers needed. And he started this campaign is
(14:39):
take the shares out of the hands of these Wall
Street thieves or wolves. And he started a buying campaign
in Memphis, you know, save Piggy Wiggily from Memphis. Most
people in Memphis, or you know, any city outside of
New York probably thought about Wall Street the same speed
it and it was sort of a this kind of
a villainous place and the playing on that, you know,
(15:01):
don't let these thieves take our fingerly Wigley away frogles.
So everyone invested in saunders scheme to buy all the
shares hold them well. He pushed these these traders into
a paddock because whatever they borrow, they have to pay.
And if he's buying all the shares, they have to
(15:23):
come to him. We repay what they owe him. I mean,
he was trying to trap them. And the border directors
of the Stock Exchange in New York kept Saunders from
doing that. They let let the traders off the hook.
They could change the rules. See there's no government agency
overseeing stock trick. Whatever the boarder directors thought was legal
(15:46):
was illegal. And especially if they had friends who got
caught up in this scheme. We're begging, you know, don't
let us die out here. That's well, well, less Saunders died.
You know, they don't know him, they don't care about him.
He's out part of their social or anything like that
at all. It's just some deal ability from Tennessee who
thought he knew what he was doing. They just you know,
(16:09):
interpreted rules to let him die. So he had borrowed
all that money. Instead of gaining what he thought would
be hundreds of millions of dollars, he had nothing, you know,
twelve They has a lot of money today. To lude
imagine what it was like in nineteen twenty three. What
Saunders had done, and there were people that really liked
(16:29):
him because he was, you know, come very famous, was
that he had begged Memphians to pull together money pay
off this debt. Some things can get back to normal
operating under his leadership. And and people did they have
rallies or save Pigmy Wingley from Memphis. That was a
(16:53):
cam maaidn not for Saunders. He was careful to say
save Pigmy Wingley from Memphis. And he had a point
there too. I mean, you know, there's a lot of
jobs of medshine staut because of his store, this business,
and then he made the dumb mistake of putting money
into this well we now know is a pig palace,
which is an extravagant whole. It says, you know, they
(17:16):
and people that invested in pigway, they must have been shocked.
Is what aren't the watering dely, We're taking time away
from our business, spending our money bail you out, and
you're building this stupid house. You don't have time for
that anymore. How did they find out about it? Well,
a workman had been injured and the newspaper published a story. Yeah,
(17:41):
holy cow, you know they couldn't believe it. This is
terrible mistake. He may then costing well. I mean he
tried to get to make money and he did, but
I mean he's still famous for what to be Wigglett
and he lost the oh here in the company six years.
(18:02):
I guess that the story is markle in itself was
started with one store. Six years later he had a thousand.
I mean, you know he had some substantial chain. But
I mean he was successful. He did build something that
was and he he just didn't hold on to it.
(18:24):
I mean he would be Sam Walton today, or his
memory would be as big as Sam Walton if he
had just held out into Pigmy Wigley. Like Walton held
on to Walmart. The most fitting memorial to him is
the ordinary self service store. Sam Walton founded Walmart in
nineteen sixty two. By the end of his life in
(18:45):
nineteen ninety two, Walton owned the largest retail merchandising company
in the world. In his autobiography Sam Walton Made in America,
he credited the enormous success of his retail stores to
the principal of self service. His brief description of the
benefits that self service gave to him and his desire
(19:07):
to pass on the savings to his customers seemed to
be a near match to Saunder's own words two generations before.
During the past twenty five years, supermarkets and large merchandise
stores have become popular in nearly every country in Europe, Asia,
Latin America, and parts of Africa. In an odd way,
(19:29):
Clarence Saunder's prophetic slogan for Pigly wiggily.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
All over the world that's come true and great job
on the piece as always by Greg Hengler, and a
special thanks to Mike Freeman who wrote the book Clarence
Saunders and the Founding of pig Wiggly and What a story,
and that he started the idea of pricing and transparency
and volume so that we could lower profits on each
(19:52):
individual item but make up for that with volume, and
that is indeed what Sam Walton did.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
There's no doubt that Sam took a lot of the
ideas of Pigley Wiggily and scaled them to a much
larger operation. The story of Pigley Wiggily, the story of
Clarence Saunders here on our American Story
And we continue here with our American stories scramming a basket.
While grocery shopping may seem second nature today, but the
idea was once groundbreaking, and that was far from the
only thing that changed when Pigley Wiggley, the first modern
American supermarket, opened over one hundred years ago. On September sixth,
(00:30):
nineteen sixteen, hundreds of curious shoppers came out for the
opening of a new grocery store at seventy nine Jefferson
Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, and we broadcast here in Oxford, Mississippi.
Memphis is only one hour practically due north. For weeks
they'd seen billboards and read newspaper ads about this grocery
store with the funny name that promised an entirely new
(00:53):
shopping experience, one that would, according to its owner, forever
change the retail grocery business. Greg Hangler sat down with
Mike Freeman. You're the location of that first Piggley Wiggily
in downtown Memphis. Mike Freeman is the author of Clarence
Saunders and the Founding of Piggy Wiggily, The Rise and
Fall of a Memphis Maverick.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I took a job at a restaurant downtown Memphis that
happened to be at seventy nine Jefferson and that was
the first location of the Pigmywigbley store. It was an
interesting fact though I became interested in that. My employer
wanted me to do some research because he was curious
as well. You know what happened in the building. It's
(01:33):
such it's important to know what Saunders did differently was
in the old days, if you went into a store
to shop, you couldn't just reach out and pick out
your own grocery. You had the clerks do that for you.
So you had to wait for them to you tell
the clark what you want and then they would bring
it to you. And Saunders thought, well, this is really slow,
(01:56):
this is so inefficient. And all this tied in with
Rand advertised before the tournament. Sature he had all these
brands we still recognized, Kellogg Cereal, Van Camp, Pork and Beans.
All these companies were selling their products and stores and
Saunders knew, well, you don't need a clerk to tell
(02:17):
you what cereal you like? You like Kellogg Cereal, there
it is, you get it yourself. Most important thing to
him is I could sell more groceries, less costs, I
pay fewer people. Saunders grew up from a family that
was poor. In fact, there's one story that a neighbor
(02:38):
bought Clarens a pair of shoes, and then when Saunders
had money later in life, he we sent a check
to that family for a number of years because they
helped him out and then he really needed it. So
he knew what it was like to suffer, you're to
live in hardship, and he carried that with him, you know,
(02:58):
he that probably motivated him as much as he sings
to do something. Saunders became a traveling salesman for wholesale company,
so he would call upon grocers and Saunders developed the
reputation from being a bit brash. He would go into
a store and he would tell the store owner says,
(03:20):
you know, you would sell more vegetables if you displayed
them this way is the way you had it, And
some thought, well, what does this guy know? Well, not
everybody appreciated his advice, but it shows that he was
already thinking about, you know, we'll trying ways to do
things have been better than before. There wasn't a man
in Memphis who built a chain of stores, mister Bauers stores,
(03:45):
and they were small corner of grocery stores. But every
Bowers store looked exactly the same as the UH signs
on the front and the layout of the store where
the grocers were placed. So each Bower store or was identical.
And that was an innovation too. If you went from
one store to the other, you know exactly where to
(04:08):
find what you wanted to buy because everything was in
the same place, despite you know, in different locations. And
Saunders Uh, he absorbed these ideas. That's the principal chain store.
Everything is alike as much as it conven So if
you're comfortable with what they do, then you'll shop at
chain store, no matter where that location was. So you
(04:31):
could go into a town where you unfamiliar to you
and find your favorite and grocery, you know, whatever the
business is, or Starbucks that matter, they get exactly what
you want. And that's the whole principal Chase or Bowers
did that before. Saunders so clearly learned from Bowers how
to manage a chain store business. The one thing that
(04:54):
Bowers did not do was arranged things customers to tick
out themselves, so you still had clerks and Saunders thought
this was inefficient way of doing things, and he was
kind of sarcastic. He says, you know, and a store
(05:14):
is not very busy, the poor customer can't get the
attention to a clerk because they're busy, goofed off of
the back crew. He said that that happens, or they're
so busy, like during Christmas season, you know, everyone's shopping
in the store, so busy they can't handle the orders.
The arrangement of the store the Bowers and the older
(05:37):
merchants had was as he walked up to a counter,
and once you had your clerk's attention, you would rattle
off what you wanted and then he would go about
the the rest of the store picking out the items
you wanted and bring them to the front, and then
you would transact business. Then then off you go. And
(05:58):
Saunders thought, well, you know, they don't need a clerk
to tell them that Campbell's soup is good, or we
just put it on a shelf that can find it themselves.
He took this journey to Terre Haute, Indiana to look
at a store that he was told was unique and
designs differently, and he came back a bit disappointed. It
(06:22):
wasn't really anything special at all. And Saunders told the
story off and he said, on the way back, he
saw this mother pig at a farm and he saw
all these piglets trying to feed off the mother pig.
And it invited in with customers trying to attract inching
of a clerk. And then the idea that popped in
(06:43):
his head. He had the name Pigley Wingley just from
seeing this pig. Okay, that's the name. And then he
went about designing, well, how would we get to actually
do this. We'd have to practically rebuild the interior of
a store to change its self service. Tigley Wiggley, you know,
that was his name, and uh it was a very
(07:05):
unusual name, and I think it was perfect for what
he was trying to do because he's being different. And
then he would he began writing advertisements where Pigley Wiggily
became a character. Tickley Wiggley goes to town. You know,
Tigley Wiggley does this, uh, and so you know that's
how he built his uh forehand identity. He made a
(07:27):
story out of imaginary pig that went shopping. I read
part of one is Tigley Wiggily. Ain't that a funny name?
A fellow that got up that name must have a
screw loose somewhere. All this may be so, but Piggy
Wiggily knows its own business best, and his business will
(07:48):
be this to have no store coourse gab and smirked
while folks are standing around ten deep waded dog. Every
customer will be her own clerk. So if she wants
to talk to a can of tomatoes and kill her time,
all right, and well, the scenes likely this would be
a mighty loadsome chat. Saunders addressed customer fears. You know,
(08:15):
it used to be if you went in certain stores
in the old days, and you know, the clerk might
put his thumb on the scale, so you'd pay extra
for tomatoes or potatoes or whatever, or they'd sell you
food that was out of date. And Saunders thought all
that was just just raw. It was just not good business.
(08:37):
You could sell more groceries just by being honest. He
was very proud of. He talked a lot about labeling
prices on everything. So if you walk in, you go
to the can soup aisle, you know exactly what the
price of that soup is. And it didn't matter what
store you're in one of his stores, they all things
(09:00):
about the same and it didn't matter who you were
or whether the clerk knew you or not, and got
the same prize.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
When we come back, more of Mike Freeman telling the
story of Clarence Saunders, the founder of Pigley Wigglely. Here
on our American stories, and we continue with our American
(09:40):
stories and with author Mike Freeman telling the story of
Pigley Wiggily and its founder Clarence Saunders. Let's continue with Mike.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
He knew he was taking a less profit. He probably
had people in the grocery business said it wouldn't can't
make any money. You're not selling high of We're not
making enough profit. But he was the king of a volume,
you know, and you can open. The more stores you open,
the more volume you have. You know. One of the
benefits of self service is you were you are selling
more goods per day and that helps eliminate the problem
(10:17):
of spoiled food or expired for And Saunders was aware
of that, and he would advertise to people say this
is what I'm doing. I'm gonna treat you fair. I mean,
now you can't imagine going in the store not having
a label on it, so this is thirty two cents
or whatever. Can't imagine it. But before, you know, in
(10:39):
the twentieth century, that was commonplate you when once you
label everything, then no grocery store can hide. His competitors
were thinking, oh, oh, you know, it has to do
something different. You know, he proved right there with that
first year that he had about eight or nine stores
in Memphis and Bowers at over forty and he outsold
(11:02):
Bower stores simply because he made it easier for people
to shop, and they just start swarming into this. To
Peggy Wiggless, you know, he's one of those rare individuals
that has an idea that work and that transformed part
of our society. Oh. I don't say he's as great
(11:23):
as Henry Ford, but you know Ford decided, well, why
can't we put an engine in this little carriage and
then hook it up to some wheels and then we
don't need a horse and bug any Well, we have
a car changed the world. Solidays isn't of that level
of success, but I think he had the same mind
where he thought, well, let's do something a little different here.
(11:45):
You know, the old ways are, Yeah, we can do
a little faster, a little bit better than that. And
then that's what pigleg was grocery stores version of the
model T That's interesting is the next year year he
started franchise and he actually filed for several patents, several
(12:06):
pats but he started selling the idea that well, uh,
you guys down at Arkansas and this is in you
can build a thigure with it. You know, there's towns
all over the South that were large enough to sport
a couple of grocery store. And then that proceeded very rapidly,
showing franchises all over the place. You could argue that
(12:27):
the founder of Walmart did virtually the same thing. He
put a Walmart and medium sized towns. You know, the
town doesn't have a Walmart. It is kind of not
a towent. But having a store like that in your community,
hiring the local folks to work in the store, probably
manage the store. It built a loyalty for that brand
(12:50):
for Walmart still exists. The difference between Walden and Saunders,
as Walt and never lost his visits, he held on
to him where I think Saunders had a lot of
the same attitudes, same personality. In some way he wanted
to be that champion, but in the end he didn't
keep that business long enough. Right now, most people don't
(13:10):
know Saunder's in Saunders achieved a level of celebrity and
wealth that must people only dream of. He's most famous for.
The Pig Palace is a building. I don't know how
many's square feeted well, they've added on to it, but
a majority of that thirty six housand square feet is
(13:30):
what he built. It was to have a swimming pool
and have everything a rich person would walk. Saunders tried
to outsmart traders of Wall Street, and to explain it simply,
he didn't realize they wrote the rules of trade. There
was no governing agency overseeing financial trade that we have now.
(13:56):
It was whatever certain people Wall Street decided to do
is what was done. They made the rules among themselves.
I have trouble sometimes describing a short cell as just
a stock maneuver where different people in the financial business
(14:17):
spread rumors at the companies in trouble that stocks of
what not worth what it's listing at now, and Saunders
thought that was horrible. I think the wiggle they had
over expanded and there was a franchiser or two that
had gone background, and that was all the trigger that
these short sellers needed. And he started this campaign is
(14:39):
take the shares out of the hands of these Wall
Street thieves or wolves. And he started a buying campaign
in Memphis, you know, save Piggy Wiggily from Memphis. Most
people in Memphis, or you know, any city outside of
New York probably thought about Wall Street the same speed
it and it was sort of a this kind of
a villainous place and the playing on that, you know,
(15:01):
don't let these thieves take our fingerly Wigley away frogles.
So everyone invested in saunders scheme to buy all the
shares hold them well. He pushed these these traders into
a paddock because whatever they borrow, they have to pay.
And if he's buying all the shares, they have to
(15:23):
come to him. We repay what they owe him. I mean,
he was trying to trap them. And the border directors
of the Stock Exchange in New York kept Saunders from
doing that. They let let the traders off the hook.
They could change the rules. See there's no government agency
overseeing stock trick. Whatever the boarder directors thought was legal
(15:46):
was illegal. And especially if they had friends who got
caught up in this scheme. We're begging, you know, don't
let us die out here. That's well, well, less Saunders died.
You know, they don't know him, they don't care about him.
He's out part of their social or anything like that
at all. It's just some deal ability from Tennessee who
thought he knew what he was doing. They just you know,
(16:09):
interpreted rules to let him die. So he had borrowed
all that money. Instead of gaining what he thought would
be hundreds of millions of dollars, he had nothing, you know,
twelve They has a lot of money today. To lude
imagine what it was like in nineteen twenty three. What
Saunders had done, and there were people that really liked
(16:29):
him because he was, you know, come very famous, was
that he had begged Memphians to pull together money pay
off this debt. Some things can get back to normal
operating under his leadership. And and people did they have
rallies or save Pigmy Wingley from Memphis. That was a
(16:53):
cam maaidn not for Saunders. He was careful to say
save Pigmy Wingley from Memphis. And he had a point
there too. I mean, you know, there's a lot of
jobs of medshine staut because of his store, this business,
and then he made the dumb mistake of putting money
into this well we now know is a pig palace,
which is an extravagant whole. It says, you know, they
(17:16):
and people that invested in pigway, they must have been shocked.
Is what aren't the watering dely, We're taking time away
from our business, spending our money bail you out, and
you're building this stupid house. You don't have time for
that anymore. How did they find out about it? Well,
a workman had been injured and the newspaper published a story. Yeah,
(17:41):
holy cow, you know they couldn't believe it. This is
terrible mistake. He may then costing well. I mean he
tried to get to make money and he did, but
I mean he's still famous for what to be Wigglett
and he lost the oh here in the company six years.
(18:02):
I guess that the story is markle in itself was
started with one store. Six years later he had a thousand.
I mean, you know he had some substantial chain. But
I mean he was successful. He did build something that
was and he he just didn't hold on to it.
(18:24):
I mean he would be Sam Walton today, or his
memory would be as big as Sam Walton if he
had just held out into Pigmy Wigley. Like Walton held
on to Walmart. The most fitting memorial to him is
the ordinary self service store. Sam Walton founded Walmart in
nineteen sixty two. By the end of his life in
(18:45):
nineteen ninety two, Walton owned the largest retail merchandising company
in the world. In his autobiography Sam Walton Made in America,
he credited the enormous success of his retail stores to
the principal of self service. His brief description of the
benefits that self service gave to him and his desire
(19:07):
to pass on the savings to his customers seemed to
be a near match to Saunder's own words two generations before.
During the past twenty five years, supermarkets and large merchandise
stores have become popular in nearly every country in Europe, Asia,
Latin America, and parts of Africa. In an odd way,
(19:29):
Clarence Saunder's prophetic slogan for Pigly wiggily.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
All over the world that's come true and great job
on the piece as always by Greg Hengler, and a
special thanks to Mike Freeman who wrote the book Clarence
Saunders and the Founding of pig Wiggly and What a story,
and that he started the idea of pricing and transparency
and volume so that we could lower profits on each
(19:52):
individual item but make up for that with volume, and
that is indeed what Sam Walton did.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
There's no doubt that Sam took a lot of the
ideas of Pigley Wiggily and scaled them to a much
larger operation. The story of Pigley Wiggily, the story of
Clarence Saunders here on our American Story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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