by Paul R. Spitzzeri
During Los Angeles’ stratospheric growth during the early 20th century, one of the many ways in which the Angel City developed so rapidly was through its retail store sector. Prior posts here, for example, have featured such major department stores as Hamburger’s (which became May Company), The Broadway and Bullock’s, which all expanded dramatically and, in the case of the latter two, along with May Company, established chains.
This was also true of the less glamorous, if more foundational, world of the grocery store, with such familiar names including Ralphs, being an early Los Angeles institution founded in 1873, and followed by Vons and Young’s Market Company about three decades later, as well as the introduction in 1919 of the wildly popular and massive Piggly Wiggly, which began in Memphis just three years prior.
One of the most successful and fastest-growing chains of the 1910s and 1920s was Daley’s, which grew from a need for a quick speculative investment emerging from a business in which he was involved into a chain of some nearly 200 stores in the space of about fifteen years. Joseph Ambrose Daley (1880-1951) hailed from the hamlet of Corsica, Pennsylvania, which now has not many more than 300 residents and is situated about 75 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
Going by his middle name in his younger years, Daley was born on a farm, though his father Lawrence also ran a bakery in the Corsica area and, in a 1925 feature about him, related that driving the wagon delivering bread was a vital memory for his future course in life. After living in DuBois, a larger town now with about 7,000 people some twenty-five miles from his hometown, Daley ended up with his family in El Reno, just west of Oklahoma City, where he ran a steam laundry and spent his evenings studying stenography. He was married just a half-year when his wife Viola died on consumption.
The next stop was Wichita, Kansas, due north of El Reno, where Daley worked briefly for the Wichita Beacon newspaper and then migrated to Kansas City, Missouri, where he was editor of the sports section, albeit for a very short spell. In 1907, while residing in Burns, Kansas (which was even smaller than Corsica), northeast of Wichita, and where he ran a store, Daley married Clara Bell. Another brief stint running a mercantile with a brother at nearby Strong City was followed by Daley and his wife, who had a son, Joseph, Jr., heading west to Los Angeles in fall 1907.
He did a bit of newspaper work and also was employed by Desmond’s, a well-known department store, following that with a stint as editor of Arrowhead Magazine, published by the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. When famed lawyer Clarence Darrow was tried for bribery in the aftermath of his defense of the McNamara brothers and their case in the domestic terrorism bombing of the Los Angeles Times, Daley covered the trial for the rival Express.
Meanwhile, he studied nights at the University of Southern California law school and was admitted to the bar in 1912, though he never practiced even as he kept up his licensing. He was secretary of the Western Implement Company and its parent firm, the Pacific Mail Order House Company, when he came into $10,000 from the sale of the companies’ material and merchandise and used it to invest in what was called the Rock Bottom Grocery, the first of which opened in September 1914 on the west side of Main Street between 2nd and 3rd streets in the heart of downtown.
From the beginning, Daley hit on a formula of low prices that, while also yielding low margins per item, led to significant profits on volume and the maintenance of an appropriate level of inventory for his operating model. A second store in Cypress Park opened in November 1914, followed by one in Boyle Heights by the following summer and a fourth member of the chain on Temple Street near Echo Park. In November 1917, Daley and four partners incorporated as the Federal Grocery Company with $300,000 in stock.
During World War I, Daley’s rapid rise in the retail grocery sphere led to his appointment to a committee that oversaw fair pricing under the auspices of the federal food administration bureau, headed by former Stanford University president and future Secretary of Commerce and President Herbert Hoover. In June 1918, he traveled with a delegation to Washington to confer with Hoover on food administration bureau policies, including on reasonable profits for grocers and means for them to keep employees as wartime industries like shipbuilding attracted workers.
In August 1919, Federal leased a six-story with basement structure from the Los Angeles Union Terminal Warehouse company on East Seventh Street in the burgeoning industrial core of the Angel City. The building included wholesale and mail order elements, as well as its own bakery on the top floor. The Express of the 7th noted that, just five years from its founding, the firm handled $2 million of business annually with a goal of getting to $5 million with the new quarters allowing for expansion and there were nearly 50 stores by then, with plans to double that number in two years.
Daley proved to be particularly effective at buying individual stores and chains, including the acquisition in October 1919 of the eight Orange County stores of the Sam Hill chain, followed in short order by the purchase of markets in Whittier and Brea, and Hill, who opened his first shop in 1914, became vice-president of Federal. Daley was also shrewd with advertising, including as an advocate for budget-conscious shoppers (hence the “Rock Bottom” name, which was actually first used in Los Angeles for a store in 1896), and, during wartime issues with sugar, made sure to tell patrons that he was looking out for their interests. He did the same with bread, “the staff of life” and, of course, a staple, as was sugar, in most households, cutting prices to as low as 8 cents a loaf at the time.
In July 1920, Daley and his associates decided to publicly issue Federal company stock and targeted customers and he wrote,
It is natural that a growing institution, beginning modestly and expanding vigorously, must at some stage in its development be reinforced and given added strength in order to progress and “carry on.”
This period in the development of the ROCK BOTTOM STORES has now been reached, and the opportunity is afforded you to share in the prosperity of the system of stores which you have helped, by your good will and patronage, to so firmly establish and build up, and to possess an ownership which will yield you definite returns.
Aside from the main feature of investment, there is a real sense of pleasure and satisfaction in holding and owning a little interest in the store where you trade and buy your things to eat, and to know that your own patronage is yielding you an income.
$150,000 of 8% preferred stock, with a par value of $1 per share, was issued by the company and Daley was sure to list all of the Angel City stores by address and phone, and the suburban locations by city from Owensmouth (Canoga Park) in the western San Fernando Valley to Tustin in southern Orange County. That same month, an stock ad in the Van Nuys News noted that there was 56% growth from 1917 to 1918 followed by 106% the next year and an expected 110% level for 1920.
By September 1921, the chain reached 80 stores and the Burbank Review of the 16th included an advertisement in which Daley made clear the strategy for success:
The policy of the Rock Bottom Stores of selling groceries on close margins, depending on volume sales and quick turnover [of inventory] for their profit, has won us the confidence of the thrifty, value-demanding and intelligent buying public of Southern California . . . and has enabled us to become the largest and fastest-growing chain store organization in the West.
Also promoted was truth in advertising, the operation of fair methods of operations and good service, with first-class merchandise from other manufacturers as well as the fact that “we manufacture and pack many items under our own R-B and Rock Bottom brands . . . [which] are rapidly winning favor among our customers.” Moreover, direct savings were realized by the consumer without a wholesaler to add to the cost. A motto of “The Noiseless Chain” was also employed by Federal.
Daley’s knack for advertising, which included offering food suggestions for those going on picnics and camping trips, his offering deep discounts during the month (March) in which his birthday fell, and his fight for lower prices and reasonable availability of bread and sugar, included a 13 July 1922 mention in the Los Angeles Times that his policies on not selling the sweetener or grain to anyone suspected of making bootleg hooch during the early days of Prohibition. Daley told the paper, “I may not be in entire sympathy with the Volstead Act, but as long as it is a law, it is the duty of every citizen to uphold that law.” He added that if others in his industry thought and acted as he did, “it would become exceedingly difficult for bootleggers to secure enough material” for their illicit operations.
By the end of 1922, it was decided to change the name of the stores to Daley’s Rock Bottom Stores, followed soon by Daley’s Chain Store Grocers and, in June 1923 the parent company name was changed to Daley’s Inc. Growth continued apace, with 110 stores in August, 127 by the start of 1924, 160 by spring 1925 and the expectation of up to 200 by the beginning of the next year, while regular dividends were paid to stockholders, starting with a 2 1/2% payout in March 1922. When Daley’s took out an ad in the Times at the end of April 1924 to promote its fleet of trucks and trailers as part of its increasingly complex transportation system, it utilized the motto of “Make Daley’s a Daily Habit.”
When Daley was profiled by Eleanor M. Barnes in the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News of 11 January 1925, he reviewed his personal history and had an employee dig out his law degree diploma, ruefully observing that it was dusty and yellowing while the ink was fading and ordering that it be framed behind glass. Barnes added that the chief executive of the firm was involved in some of the minutest of details in its operations, noting, “every new idea than [sic] can be developed to increase efficiency, speed and [the] low cost of merchandise to the consumer, is given thoughtful experimenting by the president.”
As a personal example, Daley told Barnes,
I like to keep my finger in the bakery angle of it, especially. I guess it is because I first started to work in the bakery business. My dad gave me a part interest in the firm for driving a bakery wagon.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the journalist added that he had loaves of bread and other products from the bakery, from which were made 100,000 loaves a week as well as many cakes and cookies. Notably, the executive told Barnes, “I run the business here, but my wife runs the house. She is supreme boss there, and I think that is the way it should be.” As to their two sons, Joseph, Jr. and Lawrence (who went by his middle name of Douglas), then 17 and 15 years of age, he opined that they should have newspaper experience, which he added “is the greatest education I can think of for a young man,” as it would prepare them for any career.
This edition of The Daley News, a weekly, is the fourth, so it was launched in December 1925 for the employees of the firm. Items included a report on an Orange County employees dinner meeting; the retirement of Vice-President Anthony A. Daley, cousin of the president; product placement, with employees’ comments on the results; preferred merchandise to sell during the upcoming week (the firm’s buckwheat flour at 3 for 29 cents and bread at 3 loaves for a quarter, for example, along with Del Monte tomato sauce at a nickel a can; colder weather items to push, including pancake flour and syrup, cooked cereal, canned soup, and “Spanish” dishes; a chart on the wisdom of buying larger sized items like coffee, tea, cocoa and baking powder to save money, and more.
Referring to Daley’s comment about gender roles, a “Listen, Ladies!” piece urged the wives of Daley’s employees to heed the advice of,
LADIES, there is much you can do in the way of lending a helping hand in the work of inspiring your man to go right to the top. Of course, you are kind and gracious and thoughtful, but have you ever thought to be just a bit extra on all these things because your man is fighting a man’s game in which he has to take what comes as it comes? . . .
Your man wins a number of unique victories every day of his life. His brains, ingenuity and determination enable him to come out first best repeatedly. Let him tell you about those victories. He is entitled to a listener and if you are an appreciative, why, why, he’ll just knock over an extra few each day so as to have something good to tell you about at night. You share in the victory, when the battle is described.
A photo of one of the stores is also provided with the little ditty of: “Oh see the cleanly grocery / It’s in Los Angeles city / It’s one of Daley’s , don’t you see / We make ’em all look pretty.”
By 1928, there were 185 stores in the chain and business jumped by 25% the prior year over 1926. When Daley turned 48 in March 1928 and offered the month of low prices to customers, it was stated that this gesture was so that he could share his “good fortune in all the good things of the world.” It was added that he “deserted a legal career to embark in the grocery business” and the company topped $10 million in annual business.
That month, the firm announced a much larger warehouse on six acres at the corner of Alameda and 49th streets at a cost of a half million dollars, though it was decided to expand the structure during the early stages of design and site preparation. Warehouse space, offices, the bakery, a cafeteria and kitchen for the 200 employees of the company working at the plant (there were some 700 company-wide) and spur tracks for ready rail access. Daley stated that the plan was for “a steady, gradual growth” limited to southern California and Arizona and that the plant should pay for itself by 1943. Lastly, it was asserted that the 1,200 stockholders in Daley’s were excited for the venture.
The 4 October 1929 edition of the Express reported, however, that a merger was in the works in which Daley’s would be part of a Continental Chain Stores, Inc., operated by Western Dairy Products Company. The 30 April 1930 issue of the paper noted that the consolidation was achieved with Daley’s joining with two smaller chains from San Diego (Humpty Dumpty) and Pasadena (Sunshine).
Daley soon left and formed a printing business with his sons under the name of Joe Daley and Sons and, for about a decade or so resided in Temple City. At the end of his life, he resided in Boyle Heights where the Wyvernwood Garden Apartments are situated and he died in 1951 following an operation. He was survived by his wife and two sons, who continued the printing business, which existed until within the last couple of decades. His role in the fast-growing grocery store industry in a burgeoning early 20th century Los Angeles is a notable one.
Great story! Learned a few new things. Joseph A. Daley was my Great Grand Father on my Mother’s side. About his law degree, if I recall he did not finish high school or attend college but in California one can attend law school as long as you pass the entrance examine. The family recalls him attending Loyola Law School downtown. I think his first client was someone who filed bankruptcy for their small grocery store. He use to play poker with the Mr. Von der Ahe and Mr. Ralph. I recall he had more chain stores when he quit the biz than Ralphs and Vons. They eventually became Arden Farms. Mayfield then Gelson’s. When I was a kid there was still one Daley’s store somewhere in Downtown Los Angeles. I ran a search in the Los Angles Times for him once and found dozen and dozens of stories about him. He was quite well know in L.A. Social circles and was a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club downtown. The printing company went on to develop Black Cat Forms which were some of the first carbon copy triplicate forms and NCR forms. They printed tickets for Disneyland, the Academy Awards, police traffic departments, horse race tracks as well consumer checks for major banks. I spent many summers in the 1970’s at the printing plant cleaning presses to earn summer spending money. There were employees there that knew and worked for my Great Grandfather and Grandfather Joseph A. Daley Jr. They closed after my Uncle, Joseph A. Daley III died of an illness about 17 years ago.
Hi Charles, we’re glad you found and enjoyed the post and thanks so much for sharing some of the Daley history. It’s always great when someone with a personal connection to an artifact in the Homestead’s collection reaches out to us!
My Great Grandfather, Joseph A. Daley’s innovative approach to retail branding at Daley’s Markets, akin to Walt Disney’s pioneering marketing strategies with products like Donald Duck Orange Juice and the Mickey Mouse watch, positioned Daley’s as a forerunner in the concept of in-store brands such as Daley’s bread and Daley’s baking soda.
The connection between the Daley and Disney families extended beyond business innovations. According to my Uncle, Joseph A. Daley III, my Great Grandfather was known to have shared meals with Walt Disney at the Tam O’Shanter Inn, Los Feliz, a locale conveniently situated near Disney’s original studio and his residence prior to the company’s move to Burbank.
This relationship likely played a role in Joe Daley & Sons Printing Company later securing the contract to print Disneyland tickets, a testament to the longstanding rapport between the two families.
An interesting anecdote from family lore according to my Grandmother Dorothy, reveals that her husband, Joseph A. Daley Jr., before joining the family’s printing enterprise, worked as an “efficiency expert” or “industrial engineer,” a profession highlighted in the 1957 film “Desk Set” starring Spencer Tracy. In a life-imitating-art scenario, Joseph A. Daley Jr. contributed his expertise to Disney during the installation of their first computers, which at the time were the size of entire rooms.
https://www.gelsons.com/history