A new generation of Goodmans joined the business, as Leonard Goodman, the son and nephew of Abraham and Jacob Goodman, respectively, came on board. Goody did try to upgrade its equipment, borrowing money from banks and using its stock in the high-performing Foster Grant company as collateral for the loans it needed to build its market share.

Despite this growth, some of the small, privately-owned manufacturers in Goody's industry failed to invest in their businesses, and their products suffered. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Goody's hair accessories company remained financially weak, while its Foster Grant unit thrived.ĭuring this time, the market for consumer goods in America grew dramatically, as both the popularity and the demand for luxury goods in the postwar era expanded rapidly. However, the company's subsidiary, Foster Grant, was doing well, having received contracts for defense work and experiencing an increased demand for its aviator sunglasses. Because its products were considered nonessential, and raw materials were being carefully rationed to contribute to the war effort, Goody suffered from severe shortages of materials and manpower in the early 1940s.īy the end of World War II, the once thriving business of the 1920s was barely profitable. With the entry of the United States into World War II in 1941, and the conversion of the American economy to a wartime footing, Goody's fortunes sunk even lower. In 1933, the company incorporated, under the name Goody Products, Inc. In the wake of the stock market crash, and the Great Depression of the 1930s, Goodman's boom years came to an end, and the company's business slowed. In fact, the company was in such bad shape that, often, Goodman was forced to use its own funds to pay Foster Grant's workers. Foster Grant was then a plastic molding concern that had fallen on hard financial times. With the profits that it made from its flourishing core business, Goodman purchased a 50 percent interest in the Foster Grant Company in 1929. When the jeweler across the hall from the Goodman's turned Patton down, he went across the way to the Goodmans, who agreed to make up the dice, on the condition that Kresge begin to carry a full line of their products.Īfter this breakthrough, Goodman's sales rose rapidly throughout the 1920s, as hairstyles changed and women snapped up the company's products. A buyer for the Kresge chain, Howard Patton, was in New York, and he wanted a jeweler to make him a set of rhinestone-studded dice. Finally, the company got a lucky break in 1920. However, throughout the 1910s, the company had no luck persuading buyers from these large national chains to carry their goods.

The most logical place for Goodman & Sons to expand its distribution and sales was in variety stores, such as Woolworth's and Kresge's. Goodman & Sons had staked out a market in decorative combs not only on the lower east side, but also in jewelry stores up and down the east coast, from Hartford to Philadelphia. By the time Abraham and Jacob took over the family enterprise, H. Whenever the boarder who lived in the room was out for the evening, the three Goodmans used it as a workshop, drilling holes into blank combs they had purchased, and insetting them with rhinestones.įrom these humble beginnings, the Goodman comb business grew and flourished. Working out of their apartment, the family set up shop in a back room. With his two sons, Abraham and Jacob, Goodman decided to enter the women's hair accessory business.

Goodman soon recognized that the peddler next to him was doing much better than he was by selling ornamental combs for women's hair. Goodman first set out to be a grocer, and when that business failed, he set up shop as a peddler with a pushcart on the lower east side of Manhattan. Goody was founded in 1907 by Henry Goodman, who had recently emigrated to the United States from the Ukraine with his family. In the early 1980s, Goody sold stock to the public for the first time, and, in the mid-1990s, the company was acquired in whole by another company, becoming a subsidiary of the larger consumer products manufacturer Newell Co. The company was founded in the early twentieth century by Henry Goodman, a recent immigrant, and grew through the decades, remaining in the control of Goodman's children and grandchildren. is the leading producer of hair accessories for the American market. SICs: 2844 Toilet Preparations 3851 Ophthalmic Goods

Goody hair pins