J. C. Penney, a fixture of suburban shopping malls, started out as a small-town Main Street store that fused its founder’s interests in agriculture, retail business, religion, and philanthropy. David Kruger’s presentation will bring to light the little-known agrarian roots of an American department store chain and explore how the company, and their famous founder shaped rural America throughout the twentieth century, and provides a new perspective on this American cultural institution, and its founder’s unique brand of American capitalism.