Then, in the midst of the Great Depression, he managed to get department store orders for private label soaps which he had manufactured by the John T.

His former secretary Theresa Tinker joined him there as did Enid Edson, a free-lance artist from Massachusetts. As he had only US$10,000 in capital, the new venture was set up largely on credit, something only made possible by the good business connections Schultz had built up over the previous twenty years, his abilities as a salesman, and his dogged determination to succeed.įirst, Shultz talked the owners of the Bowery Savings Bank building, Manhattan – which was then half empty – into leasing him a suite of rooms with the rent deferred for at least six months. Schultz stayed on as president of Lightfoot Schultz until 1933, then resigned to start Shulton a brave decision given the economic climate of the time. Schultz was forced into selling the controlling interest in the company to American Safety Razor in 1930. The business continued to flourish during the 1920s but a mistimed expansion into fine chemicals got Lightfoot Schultz deep in debt when credit sources became scarce after the stock market crash of 1929. Ricksecker Co., Inc., New York, a perfume company, in 1918. The company did well it moved into larger manufacturing facilities in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1917 and acquired Theo.

There he established the Lightfoot Schultz Company which made soaps and other toiletries. Although it was successful he sold up in 1910 and moved to New York. In 1904, Schultz formed a partnership with D’Ascenzo to make and sell mosaics and leaded glass for homes and churches where he acted as the salesman for the business. He then started work as a stock boy for Karcher & Rehm – a Philadelphian interior decorating firm – while attending night school studying art and architecture under the direction of Maxfield Parrish and Nicola D’Ascenzo. After his family moved to Philadelphia – his mother’s original home – he went to the Friend’s Select School in Wilmington, Delaware, graduating from there aged sixteen. William Lightfoot Schultz was born into a Quaker family in Springfield, Ohio in 1876.

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