John Augustine Hartford (February 10, 1872 – September 20, 1951) was the longtime President of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company ("A&P"), serving in that position for 35 years from 1916 until his death. His father, George Huntington Hartford (1833–1917) left the control of the company's voting stock to a trust that gave total control to John and his older brother George Ludlum Hartford (1864–1957) who served as chairman. John, who one company historian named the "Merchant Prince", ran the business operations side of the empire, while his brother George ran the financial side. Time magazine interviewed John and his brother George who were on their cover in November 1950. Time wrote that "going to the A&P was almost an American tribal rite". The Wall Street Journal in an editorial on August 29, 2011, wrote "Together the brothers, neither of whom had finished high school, built what would be, for 40 years, the largest retail outlet in the world." The New York Times in an editorial on September 7, 2011, wrote that John and George Hartford "were among the 20th century's most accomplished and visionary businessmen."
Born and raised in Orange, New Jersey, John Hartford started his career at A&P in 1888 after finishing high school. Far more outgoing that either his father or older brother, John traveled extensively and became the team's representative in the far flung empire. After his father acquired ownership of the company from the estate of George Gilman, the company's founder, John lead the company's expansion and the firm became the largest grocery chain by 1915. He reinvented the company three times: the economy grocery store concept in 1912; the combination grocery/meat/produce store in the mid-1920s; and the self serve supermarket in the late 1930s. As a result, he was responsible for improving the country's nutrition by lowering the cost of food and expanding the diet of the average American.
John's personal life was also different from his conservative father and brother. He was married three times: to Pauline Augusta Corwin (1872–1948) in 1892; to Frances Bolger in 1924; and, to his first wife for a second time in 1925. In 1950, Hartford had a chapel built on the New York-Presbyterian Hospital campus in memory of his recently deceased wife, Pauline. He owned a large Tudor manor house in Valhalla, New York and maintained a suite at the Plaza Hotel. John had no children and left his estate to the John A. Hartford Foundation. "To immortalize outstanding American merchants", Joseph Kennedy in 1953 commissioned a bronze bust of John's father George Huntington Hartford, four times life size along with 7 other men, which would come to be known as the Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame in Chicago.
Life and career
John Hartford was born in Orange, New Jersey and was the fourth child of George Huntington Hartford (1832–1917) and Marie Josephine Ludium (1837–1915). John's father was already an executive at the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company which his father would then own. Mr. Hartford was also elected Mayor of Orange when John was six and served as both Mayor and Gilman's partner. At an early age, John demonstrated an entrepreneurial spirit when on St. Patrick's day he parked his father's buggy along the parade route and charged people to climb up to get a better view. After completing high school, he joined A&P, working at a company warehouse.
By the time John joined the firm, A&P was making the transition from being a chain of tea and coffee shops to the first chain of grocery stores. John's older brother, known as Mr. George to distinguish him from his father known as Mr. Hartford, had joined the firm eight years earlier and had won respect for his suggestions to expand the then limited product line. Both John's father and brother were private people as compared to John's extroverted personality, and John quickly assumed the role of representing headquarters by extensively traveling around the company. Gilman died in 1901, and George Sr. acquired control of the company from the estate, eventually purchasing the interest of the Gilman heirs. At that time, A&P ranked only 5th among national grocery chains with 200 stores and the company started an aggressive expansion plan. About 1907, John and his brother George assumed greater management responsibilities when their father reached 75 with George Jr. controlling finance and John directing sales and operations.
One of John's early changes was to change the branding on the company's lines of private-label products. John decided to replace the company's long name on labels and store signs with the now distinctive "A&P". He also expanded the product lines available in the stores. To make room, he substituted the large inventory of premiums displayed in the stores with S&H Green Stamps. By 1912, the company reached 400 stores. Next, he proposed opening no-frills economy stores that offered low prices by operating at a 12% markup rather than the normal 22% markup. His father and brother rejected the idea, but later agreed to an experiment. The first store was opened with an investment of only $3,000 and produced a higher rate of return than the regular stores. Because the economy stores were small, they could be quickly set up in existing real estate. In three years, the chain expanded to 1600 units, opening 864 stores in 1915 alone. As a result of John's marketing concepts, A&P was now the largest grocer in the country. The next year, Mr. Hartford retired and John was named president while his brother George became chairman and Treasurer. In 1917, their father died and left his estate to a one-generation trust that gave total control of the company's voting stock to George and John as long as either lived.