Ray Kroc, the "Founder" of McDonald's on This Day in History

This day in history: Ray Kroc, the "Founder" of McDonald's fast food restaurant died on this day in 1984. The movie "Founder" starring Michael Keaton was a great movie, but it painted an unflattering picture of Ray Kroc. Kroc saw something in McDonald's that the real founders did not, and he was ruthless in his efforts to make Mcdonalds the worldwide phenomenon it is today.

From Sean W Malone: Films that celebrate entrepreneurship, and reveal that great drama of business success, are rather rare. We have a new one in “The Founder.” It is the story of how an innovative little hamburger stand in San Bernardino, California, turned into the international corporate franchising giant we now know as McDonald's.

Kroc becomes obsessed with the idea that this model should be franchised all over the country. 

The film centers around Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton), a traveling salesman who first encountered the original McDonald's restaurant by selling several multi-mixer milkshake machines to owners Dick (Nick Offerman) and Maurice (John Carroll Lynch) McDonald – the McDonald brothers.

After a string of middling business ventures in food industry sales, Ray was shocked to receive an order for 6 of the machines for a single restaurant and immediately drove from St. Louis to San Bernardino to see what kind of restaurant could possibly need to make 30 milkshakes simultaneously.

As the story goes, the McDonald brothers proudly give Ray Kroc a tour of their unique "Speedee Service System" and Ray becomes obsessed with the opportunity to take their model and franchise it all over the country.

At first, the brothers are skeptical, having previously failed in an attempt to franchise their business due to quality control concerns, but a persistent (that word is very important to this film) Ray Kroc eventually convinces them to allow him to become their new head of franchising operations. They draw up a contract which the wary McDonald brothers believe gives them tight control over the whole business, and Ray gets to work.

He aggressively pushes the expansion of new locations, starting first in his home of Illinois, quickly adding McDonald's restaurants throughout the Midwest.

Marketing vs. Quality

Unfortunately, not all is well under the Golden Arches.

Even as Kroc's hard work is generating new business and building the McDonald's brand, his own finances are faltering on just a 1.5% commission, and his own ambition begins to create conflict with the much more cautious and quality-minded Dick and Maurice.  

Kroc is a man of almost unlimited ambition who in the end works to strong-arm and even cheat the McDonald brothers out of their own business.

As their disagreements build, their relationship breaks down and Kroc, who is the first to pitch McDonald's as the "new American Church" and a place that should be synonymous with family, begins to look and act more like Gordon Gekko than a middle-American minister.

Keaton's performance is fabulous, if often a little off-putting through a harsh nasally accent, and the character writing throughout is excellent. Kroc is a man of almost unlimited ambition who in the end works to strong-arm and even cheat the McDonald brothers out of their own business. And while it's very hard to define Ray Kroc as an evil person, he does increasingly unethical or shady things in the pursuit of his own interests throughout the film both in business and in his personal life, including leaving his first wife (Laura Dern) in order to pursue the wife of one of his franchise owners, Joan (Linda Cardellini).

The title of the film itself is a reference to Ray's low character, as he begins to refer to himself as the "Founder" of McDonald's when meeting new people, even claiming the first restaurant was located in Illinois, leaving Maurice and Dick out of the story entirely.

Given that its central protagonist is a Walter White-like figure, descending into a pit of greed and disreputable behavior, it would be understandable for many to then perceive the film as a whole as "anti-business," but I think that this would be a mistake.

There are many aspects of the film that show the beauty of innovation and entrepreneurship in ways you don't often get to see on screen. For example, director John Lee Hancock depicts the McDonald brothers developing their system and the work they put into their business. This is filled with adoration and love, and even Ray Kroc is presented as extremely hard working, smart, and in many ways, a true visionary in spite of everything else.

What Causes Success?

The film raises many important questions about what makes a business successful.

For all their innovations in efficiency, Dick & Maurice McDonald didn't see what Ray Kroc saw. And although Maurice berates Kroc over the phone in one climactic scene, asking him what he'd ever invented or done, the truth is that Ray actually did invent quite a bit and added a great deal of value to their partnership.

There are many lessons to be drawn from this film for entrepeneurs of any age. 

In fact, Kroc fundamentally solved the McDonald brothers' core problem, quality control, by building effective systems and eventually even a new business structure that allowed him to more effectively train, and then maintain control over, franchise owners. The film doesn't cover this, but those systems eventually turned into what is now called "Hamburger University", a 130,000 square foot training facility in Oak Brook, IL (set up by fry cook-turned-Chairman, Fred Turner) where franchise-owners go to learn the essence of what it means to run a McDonald's.

There are many lessons to be drawn from "The Founder" for aspiring entrepreneurs.

The first is that while ambition is a key component to success, it should always be subordinate to strong ethics and personal character. Another lesson is that being a great entrepreneur is not always the same thing as being the inventor of a new product or service, or even about being  a great "manager" who gets a business off the ground. Often the greatest entrepreneurs are the ones who are able to see the opportunity and possibility in what's already around them when everyone else can't.

Certainly the way the film tells this story, Dick and Maurice McDonald got the short end of the stick once Ray figured out how to get around their original contract, and they were downright screwed in many ways once their partnership dissolved. But they didn't build what Ray built. The McDonald brothers created one good hamburger stand. Ray Kroc created an empire.

So perhaps he really is the "founder" after all.

 

Sean W. Malone

Sean W. Malone has spent over a decade building creative teams and producing content with the goal of effectively communicating the value and importance of human freedom to as many people as possible.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

The Soybean Car on This Day in History

 

This day in history: Henry Ford patented a soybean car on this day in 1942, which was 30% lighter than a regular car. The soybean car was a concept car built with agricultural plastic. The New York Times in 1941 states the car body and fenders were made from a strong material derived from soy beans, wheat and corn. One article claims that they were made from a chemical formula that, among many other ingredients, included soy beans, wheat, hemp, flax and ramie; while the man who was instrumental in creating the car, Lowell E. Overly, claims it was "…soybean fiber in a phenolic resin with formaldehyde used in the impregnation" The body was lighter and therefore more fuel efficient than a normal metal body. It was made in Dearborn, Michigan and was introduced to public view on August 13, 1941. It was made, in part, as a hedge against the rationing of steel during World War II. It was designed to run on hemp fuel.

Because of World War II all US automobile production was curtailed considerably, and the plastic car experiment basically came to a halt. By the end of the war the plastic car idea went into oblivion. According to Lowell Overly, the prototype car was destroyed by Bob Gregorie.

Others argue that Ford invested millions of dollars into research to develop the plastic car to no avail. He proclaimed he would "grow automobiles from the soil" — however it never happened, even though he had over 12,000 acres (4,900 ha) of soybeans for experimentation. Some sources even say the Soybean Car wasn't made from soybeans at all — but of phenolic plastic, an extract of coal tar. One newspaper even reports that all of Ford's research only provided whipped cream as a final product.

The Henry Ford Museum gives three reasons for Ford's decision to make a plastic automobile, the plastic car made from soybeans.

Ford was looking to integrate industry with agriculture;

Ford claimed that his plastic made these cars safer than normal metal cars;

Ford wished to make his new plastic material a replacement for the metals used in normal cars. A side benefit would have been easing of the shortage of metal during World War II.

Whisky King Hiram Walker on This Day in History

 

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This day in history: Hiram Walker died on this day in 1899. Hiram Walker was an American entrepreneur and founder of the Hiram Walker and Sons Ltd. distillery in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

Hiram Walker founded his distillery in 1858 in Detroit. He first learned how to distill cider vinegar in his grocery store in the 1830s before moving on to whisky and producing his first barrels in 1854. However, with the Prohibition movement gathering momentum and Michigan already becoming "dry," Walker decided to move his distillery across the Detroit River to Windsor, Ontario. 

Walker began selling his whisky as Hiram Walker's Club Whisky, in containers that were "clearly marked" and he used a process to make his whisky that was vastly different from all other distillers.

It became very popular, angering American distillers, who forced the US government to pass a law requiring that all foreign whiskeys state their country of origin on the label. From this point forward, Hiram Walker's Canadian Club whisky was Canada's top export whisky. He established and maintained the company town that grew around his distillery, exercising planning and control over every facet of the town, from public works to religious services to police and fire control.

The Hiram Walker & Sons Distillery remained in the Walker family until 1926 when they sold it to Harry C. Hatch. Canadian Club whisky is still produced at the distillery site Walker founded. The company has gone through several owners and is now part of Pernod Ricard. The Canadian Club brand is owned by Beam Suntory, a subsidiary of Suntory Holdings of Japan.

As for the spelling of the drink, it is generally spelled “whiskey”—with an e—in the United States and Ireland. It is spelled “whisky”—without the e—in Scotland and Canada, which are both well known for their whisk(e)ys.

Most Canadian whiskies are blended multi-grain liquors containing a large percentage of corn spirits, and are typically lighter and smoother than other whisky styles. When Canadian distillers began adding small amounts of highly-flavorful rye grain to their mashes, people began demanding this new rye-flavored whisky, referring to it simply as "rye". Today, as for the past two centuries, the terms "rye whisky" and "Canadian whisky" are used interchangeably in Canada and (as defined in Canadian law) refer to exactly the same product, which generally is made with only a small amount of rye grain.

Canadian Club is still one of the top 10 best selling whisky's in the world, the top ten being:

1) Jack Daniels

2) Jim Beam

3) Jameson

4) Crown Royal (also Canadian)

5) Suntory Kakubin (including Highball)

6) Black Nikka

7) Suntory Torys (including Highball)

8) Maker’s Mark

9) Canadian Club

10) Seagram’s 7 Crown

Source

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Killed by a Clown on This Day in History

This day in history: On this day (January 11) in 1854, William Snyder, 13, died in San Francisco, California, reportedly after a circus clown swung him around by his heels.

Clowns have had a dark and sordid history for quite some time, long before Stephen King's IT and John Wayne Gacy.

One early incident of a an evil clown comes form an Edgar Allan Poe short story called Hop-Frog. The title character, a person with dwarfism taken from his homeland, becomes the jester of a king particularly fond of practical jokes. Taking revenge on the king and his cabinet for the king's striking of his friend and fellow dwarf Trippetta, he dresses the king and his cabinet as orangutans for a masquerade. In front of the king's guests, Hop-Frog murders them all by setting their costumes on fire before escaping with Trippetta.

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Take note of the following written by Andrew Halliday back in 1863:

It is very possible that pantomimic (Clown) performances were practised at feasts or merry-makings among the Jews and ancient Egyptians, and we know that the early Greek drama largely partook of the nature of pantomime; but pantomime as a regularly organized theatrical entertainment was first introduced at Rome in the reign of Augustus. Indeed, that exalted personage is said to have been the inventor of it. It is certain, at any rate, that he patronized it most liberally, and that splendid pantomimes were produced in Rome during his reign. Maecenas, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and most of the literary men of the day, frequented the theatres to witness them; and in some of their works we have criticisms of the pieces and of the actors who performed in them. There were two great rival pantomimists at this time in Rome, Bathyllus and Pylades. The former was originally a slave in the household of Maecenas; but his master was so delighted with the way in which he used to amuse his guests with mimicry and other antics at table that he gave him his liberty, and procured him an engagement at the theatre. Bathyllus was a grotesque and funny dog, who trode the lighter walks of pantomime; but Pylades was of a serious turn, and excelled in representing stories of a tragical kind. This Pylades actually wrote a treatise on his art, in which he declared that no man could be a good pantomimist (chironomist he was called, from the practice of expressing himself chiefly by the motion of the hand) who did not understand music, geometry, natural and moral philosophy, rhetoric, painting, and sculpture. 'All which the poets have feigned,' wrote Pylades, the clown, 'all which the mythologists have taught, all which the historians have recorded, must ever be present to his recollection.' The pantomimes in those days generally represented the loves or exploits of the gods and goddesses. The skill of the performers seems to have been perfectly wonderful. The snarling old cynic, Demetrius, after witnessing the pantomime of the 'Loves of Mars and Yenus ' (in the time of Nero), said, 'I hear all that you are doing, for it is not only my sight that you address, but your hands appear to 'Speak.' The people of Rome were quite mad at this time about pantomimes and pantomimists. When Nero requested Demetrius to name what gift he desired, the 'old gentleman asked for a pantomimist, and assigned as a reason that he had many neighbours of whose language his own people were ignorant, but that if he were in possession of one of the performers in the pantomime he need not provide himself with interpreters. The Emperor Augustus was extremely partial to the pantomimists. By his command they were exempted from that corporal punishment to which mimics and players were exposed, and they were indulged moreover by a release from certain civil prohibitions. This, however, caused the fraternity to presume upon their privileges. Bathyllus and Pylades became jealous of each other, and their partizans got up rows in the streets, and this caused some of their privileges to be withdrawn. Shortly after this Bathyllus died, and Pylades had the field all to himself, which made him intolerably conceited and overbearing. On one occasion, when a critic hissed him, he stopped in the middle of his performance and pointed the man out to the indignation of the audience. For this he was banished; but the populace soon brought him back again. Another rival to Pylades now appeared in one Hylas, a pupil of the deceased Bathyllus. Pylades and Hylas contended together in the same theatre, and the passages of wit between them, seem to have been exceedingly smart. In trying to represent the character of Agamemnon, in a particular line which termed him 'the great," Hylas stood up on his tiptoes. 'That,' said Pylades, 'is being tall, not great.' The audience called upon him to do it better himself, and when he came to the line he threw himself into an attitude of meditation, thus giving an idea of the first characteristic of a great man. Augustus became alarmed at these disputes, possibly thinking them a little too political, and calculated to excite the populace; but Pylades argued with him, and pointed out the advantage which the emperor gained, as long as the attention of the Romans could be diverted by pantomimes from the consideration of their political subjection. 'Sire,' he said, 'you are ungrateful: the best thing that can happen to you is that they should busy themselves about us.' Pylades was evidently better versed in statecraft than the emperor. Hylas seems to have been a very irritating rival of the old favourite. But he paid the penalty of his provocations at last. A partizan of Pylades caught him one night, and gave him a sound horsewhipping on his own door-step.

In the reign of Tiberius the quarrels of the players grew yet worse. Blood was shed in the theatres, and not only were the lives of some spectators sacrificed in the squabble, but several of the emperor's guards were killed. It was consequently proposed in the senate to subject the pantomimists to corporal punishment; but it was eventually considered disrespectful to the memory of Augustus to repeal his act of exemptions. Regulations, however, were made for reducing the enormous sums which had hitherto been granted for producing pantomimes, and some provisions were made for diminishing the arrogance of the performers. Senators were forbidden to enter their houses. Roman knights were not allowed to follow in their suite, and their exhibitions were prohibited elsewhere than in the theatres. But in the course of a few years the disorders arising from these theatrical performances increased to such a pitch that all the actors were banished from Italy.

They crept back again, however, in the reign of Caligula, and soon acquired all their old licence. Nero found much amusement in their squabbles, and often took part in them. On one occasion, when stones and benches were flying about in the theatre, Nero actively participated in the fray, and broke the praetor's head with a footstool. The pantomimists under this reign were once more the delicise (the delights) of the Romans. Again, however, they were banished; and again they were brought back at the demand of the Roman youth, who could not exist without their pantomimes. Under Domitian their performances became of a very profligate character. The great performer of these days, Paris, was accused of being too intimate with some of the high-blooded dames of Rome. He devised and acted a pantomime called the 'Amour of Leda,' which won great applause, chiefly, it would appear, because it was not very decent. The emperor's wife, Domitia, fell in love with this handsome clown and was divorced in consequence.

The Roman pantomimists were employed at this time not only upon the stage, but to amuse the guests at great houses during dinner. They appeared as carvers, and the flying knife which they brandished was directed with a different movement to each dish. He was considered to know little of his art who could not vary his flourish as he operated upon a hare, or a hen or a lark.

There were amateur pantomimists in those days. Stage-struck Roman youths paid large sums of money to be allowed to play, and their friends seem to have countenanced and supported them. Pliny tells a story of two youthful Romans of equestrian rank who died while exhibiting in the same pantomime. The scandals which arose in consequence of these unseemly proceedings led to the final suppression of the pantomimists by Trajan.

The pantomimes of the Romans were called Fabulae Atellenae, from Atella, the name of a town, where they were first introduced on a small scale. The actors wore masks and high-heeled shoes, furnished with brass or iron heels, which jingled as they danced. Latterly the fabulae were designed to admit of a good deal of horse play and knocking about, and it is not by any means improbable that the actors may have been in the habit of burning each other with red-hot pokers. It is very certain that a kick in a certain place was held to be a very good joke, and was always rapturously applauded. The Fabulae Atellanae and the Chironomists are therefore fairly entitled to be regarded as the first examples of the pantomime and its modern performers—clown, pantaloon, harlequin, and columbine.

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Samuel Colt the Equalizer on This Day in History

 

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This day in history: American gun inventor Samuel Colt died on this day (January 10) in 1862. The old saying goes like this: God created men equal. Colonel Colt made them equal.

Samuel Colt's gun did not take off at first, as the public perceived pistols as unreliable, preferring the Bowie knife instead. As a result, he initially went bankrupt. This all changed with the Mexican American War and the Civil War and the 15 million dollar fortune that followed. 

For the greater part of the history of guns, the flintlock had been the dominant ignition system for firearms. However with the colt pistol, the soldier or gunsman now had six shots before reloading rather than only one.

Colt championed the concept of modernism before the word was invented, he pioneered the use of celebrity endorsements to promote his products, he introduced the phrase "new and improved" to advertising and demonstrated the commercial value of trade-name recognition as a word for "revolver" in French is le colt. Barbara M. Tucker, professor of history and director of the Center for Connecticut Studies at Eastern Connecticut State University, wrote that Colt's marketing techniques transformed the firearm from a utilitarian object into a symbol of American identity. Tucker added that Colt associated his revolvers with American patriotism, freedom and individualism while asserting America's technological supremacy over Europe's.

In 2021, the Colt Python was the second best selling revolver, and the Colt Anaconda was number 8, according to GunGenius. 

Back in 2013, Jesse James' Colt .45 revolver went up for auction and was expected to sell for more than $1.6 million.

Colt's Manufacturing Company is now a subsidiary of Czech holding company Ceská zbrojovka Group.

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The iPhone on This Day in History

 

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This Day in History: Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the original iPhone at a Macworld keynote in San Francisco on this day in 2007. Since then, Apple has annually released new iPhone models and iOS updates. As of November 1, 2018, more than 2.2 billion iPhones had been sold. The iPhone is one of the two largest smartphone platforms in the world alongside Android. The iPhone has generated large profits for Apple, making it one of the world's most valuable publicly traded companies. The first-generation iPhone was described as "revolutionary" and a "game-changer" for the mobile phone industry and subsequent models have also garnered praise. The iPhone has been credited with popularizing the smartphone and slate form factor, and with creating a large market for smartphone apps, or "app economy". As of January 2017, Apple's App Store contained more than 2.2 million applications for the iPhone.

Samsung is however world's number one selling phone brand at 27.55%. In second place, is Apple, with 26.75% of total sales. In third place, 15 points behind, is Xiaomi with 11.51%.

Cell phones and Smartphones have long been hailed as instruments of crime reduction since they are equipped with cameras and the ability to make instant calls, at least until the huge increase in crime during 2020 and 2021. However, "Although cell phones have proven to be instrumental in reducing crime, they’ve also played a part in creating it. High-priced smartphones have become a hot commodity on the international black market, resulting in a growing number of thefts every year. In Australia, more than 40,000 cell phones are reported stolen every year, while in the U.K., 228 cell phones are snatched every hour. In the U.S., one in three people have lost cell phones to thieves; the problem is particularly severe in New York, Los Angeles and Miami, where half of the residents been victimized at some point." Source

Also, the "i" in iPhone, iMac, iPod and iPad stands for internet, individual, instruct, inform, and inspire.

This Man Loved His iPhone So Much, He Literally Married It

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Master Criminal, Adam Worth, on This Day in History

 

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This Day in History: The Napoleon of Crime, Adam Worth, died on this day [January 8] in 1902. Adam Worth was a German-born American criminal and crime boss who is widely considered the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional criminal mastermind James Moriarty in the Sherlock Holmes series, whom Conan Doyle calls "The Napoleon of Crime".

Worth enlisted in the Union Army during the civil war at age 17. When he was wounded in battle he found out that he was listed as "killed in action" and so he left. After the war, Worth became a pickpocket, and over time he started his own gang of pickpockets, and then began to organize robberies and heists.

"His name was Adam Worth; a dapper, cerebral and ambitious little man, he had come from nowhere--specifically, the mean backstreets of Cambridge, Massachusetts--to become the most successful safecracker and bank robber in the city of New York, which in 1865 boasted 53,000 crimes of violence. Dissatisfied with a mere local notoriety, and seeking to escape the notice of Pinkerton detectives, in 1869 he borrowed or stole the name of Henry J. Raymond, late founder editor of the New York Times, and sailed to England where he transformed himself into an elegant English gentleman, with a flat on Piccadilly, a steam yacht, racehorses and an international syndicate of robbers and forgers. For years he drove the world's police forces to distraction with well planned, bloodlessly executed crimes all the way to Port Elizabeth in South Africa, without ever leaving a bit of incriminating evidence."

Richard Wolkomir

"Adam Worth, the greatest thief of the 19th century, could have furnished the basis of a great novel. No need though: In 'The Napoleon of Crime--The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief,' British journalist Ben Macintyre has given him a biography that reads like one. Worth, a German-born American Jew who affected the manners and lifestyle of a Victorian English gentleman, became, in the words of his great adversaries, the Pinkerton detectives, 'The most remarkable, most successful and most dangerous professional criminal known to modern times.'" Source

See also 19th Century Crime Boss Adam Worth and the Pinkertons 1905