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Isaac Singer
Born
Licensed dealers. Singer's sewing machine company, run with his partner Edward Clark, sold territorial rights to independent agents in the 1850s, who paid for the right to sell and service machines in their area. It is often cited as an early forerunner of franchising, though Singer soon replaced most agents with company-owned branches because it wanted more control, a tension that runs through franchising ever since.
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Martha Matilda Harper
Born
The first retail franchise system. Harper, a Canadian-born former servant, opened a hair salon in Rochester, New York, in 1888 and from 1891 licensed other women, many of them poor, to open Harper Method salons using her training, products and standards. By the 1920s there were hundreds worldwide. Historians credit her with the business-format franchise later made famous by fast food, built as a route to ownership for working women.
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Howard Deering Johnson
Born
Roadside restaurants. Johnson, who started with an ice cream stand in Quincy, Massachusetts, franchised his orange-roofed Howard Johnson's restaurants from 1935, when he lacked money to build them himself, supplying food from central commissaries so every outlet tasted the same. By the 1960s it was America's largest restaurant chain by revenue and added motor lodges. It later faded as faster burger chains overtook it.
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Colonel Sanders
Born
Franchising a recipe. Sanders, who ran a roadside café in Corbin, Kentucky, began licensing his fried chicken recipe and pressure-frying method to other restaurants in 1952, often in return for a few cents per chicken sold, travelling from town to town to sign them up. He sold Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1964 for a modest sum and became its paid public face, later complaining publicly about what the new owners did to his gravy.
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Kemmons Wilson
Born
Motel franchising. Wilson, a Memphis builder irritated by cramped, inconsistent motels on a family holiday, opened the first Holiday Inn in 1952 with standard features such as air conditioning, a pool and free stays for children, then franchised the formula to investors along America's new interstate highways. Predictability became the product, and Holiday Inn grew into the world's largest hotel chain by the early 1970s.
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Ray Kroc
Born
The McDonald's system. Kroc, a milkshake-mixer salesman, signed a franchising deal with Richard and Maurice McDonald in 1954, enforced their fast, standardised kitchen across outlets, and later bought them out. He insisted on uniform quality, ran training at Hamburger University, and sold franchises one at a time to owner-operators rather than whole territories. His treatment of the McDonald brothers remains a sore point in the story.
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Harry J. Sonneborn
Born
Franchising as property. Sonneborn, McDonald's first president, saw that franchise fees alone barely paid, and from the late 1950s had the company lease or buy the land under restaurants and sublet it to franchisees at a mark-up. Rent became the core of McDonald's income and gave it control over its operators. He is often quoted as saying McDonald's was in the real estate business rather than the hamburger business.
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Dave Thomas (businessman)
Area franchising and the drive-through. Thomas learned the trade as a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchisee, turning round struggling outlets in Columbus, Ohio, before opening the first Wendy's there in 1969. Wendy's sold franchises for whole areas to developers who would build many outlets quickly, and popularised the pick-up window. He later became the chain's homely face in television adverts. He died in 2002.
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Tom Monaghan
Delivery franchising. Monaghan bought a small pizza shop in Ypsilanti, Michigan, with his brother in 1960 and built Domino's around one promise, fast delivery, with a narrow menu and simple kitchens that franchisees could run near student and military towns. Its 30-minute guarantee was dropped in 1993 after lawsuits over crashes involving delivery drivers. He sold the company in 1998 and turned to Catholic causes.
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Fred DeLuca
Born
Low-cost franchises at scale. DeLuca opened a sandwich shop in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1965 with a $1,000 loan from family friend Peter Buck, and Subway grew by selling cheap franchises that needed no cooking equipment, often using development agents who recruited franchisees for a cut. It became the world's largest restaurant chain by outlet count, but crowded franchisees so closely that many complained of cannibalised sales. He died in 2015.
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Anita Roddick
Born
Franchising values in Britain. Roddick opened the first Body Shop in Brighton in 1976 and, short of money, expanded by letting others open shops under her name, a model that took it worldwide in a few years. Franchisees sold refillable bottles and campaigned on animal testing and the environment as part of the brand. After its sale to L'Oréal in 2006 critics questioned how far those values survived. She died in 2007.
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Toshifumi Suzuki
Born
Franchising in Japan. Suzuki licensed 7-Eleven from its American owner in 1973 and built Seven-Eleven Japan by converting family-run liquor and rice shops into franchised convenience stores, offering owners a way to survive against supermarkets. Headquarters supplied data-driven ordering and several deliveries a day, and took a large share of gross profit. Franchisees' complaints about 24-hour opening rules later became a national issue. He died in 2026.
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Bill Marriott
Born
Asset-light hotels. Marriott led his father's company from 1972 and in 1993 split it into Marriott International, which manages and franchises hotels, and Host Marriott, which owns the buildings. Hotel groups have since largely stopped owning hotels, earning fees from owners who carry the property risk. Marriott became the world's largest hotel company, especially after buying Starwood in 2016.
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