1906 - Retail, Trade

Retail, Trade

Fuller Brush Co. has its beginnings January 1 in a firm founded at Hartford, Conn., by Nova Scotia-born merchant Alfred Carl Fuller, 21. Having been fired from his first three jobs, Fuller quits his job as salesman for a Somerville, Mass., brush company, starts his own company with $375 in savings, develops a machine for making twisted-wire brushes, produces them at night in the basement of his sister's home, sells them door-to-door by day, builds a line of brushes with specific uses, and has sales of $8,500 in his first year (see 1910).

Merchant and philanthropist Marshall Field dies at New York January 16 at age 71, leaving an estate valued at $125 million.

Sears, Roebuck opens a large Chicago plant to produce and distribute goods designed for mail-order sales (see 1904; 1907).

New York's Tiffany & Co. moves into a new building at Fifth Avenue and 37th Street, where it will remain until it moves to 57th Street in 1940.