James A Head, Sr. has two secrets to his longevity and his success in business: walking and working. As a young man, the founder, and owner of Head’s Office Products, a long-time and highly respected Birmingham business, he walked the streets of Birmingham delivering newspapers, cutting lawns, and later selling business machines and office supplies, which was the genesis of his business. And he never stopped working until he reached 92.
Head was born in Tiffin, Ohio, where his father, George Washington Head, a native of Kentucky, was in the insurance business. His mother, Mary Elizabeth Horton Head, was a native of Pleasant Ridge, Alabama. The family moved to Indianapolis where his father started his own insurance company. His father died in 1913, following an appendectomy, and his mother decided to take the family back to the South, to Birmingham. Following a 20-hour train ride from Indianapolis to Birmingham, the family settled into a new home in the Norwood section of town, where Head attended Barker Elementary School, and later Paul Hayne School, dropping out of high school after one year.
World War I brought difficult times and Head realized he needed to help put food on the family table. As a teenager, he mowed lawns and delivered newspapers around a large section of Birmingham. As the recession worsened, Head got a job with a wholesale drug company filling and delivering orders, working from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m. for seven dollars a week. A year later he was offered another job as a foundry timekeeper, but the business soon closed. He then took another job as a timekeeper at Birmingham Stove and Range Company. A year and a half later, the opportunity came along that defined his lifetime career – he became a salesman of office systems, specifically reinforced tab folders, for Library Bureau.
For nearly 120 years the Library Bureau has been primarily engaged in designing, manufacturing, marketing, and installing wood shelving, library furniture, office furniture, and systems. The company was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey in Boston Massachusetts… “for the definite purpose of furnishing libraries with equipment and supplies of unvarying correctness and reliability.”
Head’s first big sale was to Alabama Power, an order for 40,000 file folders and 40 steel, four-drawer file cabinets. After little more than a year with the company, he became the Birmingham manager for the company and proceeded to win the company’s national sales contest for three straight years.
In 1925, at the age of 21, Head was called to New Orleans by the Library Bureau to replace his former boss who had resigned. But it was a short stint in the Crescent City. His former boss offered to back him financially if he would return to Birmingham with his family and open his own business. So in November of 1926, Head opened an office in downtown Birmingham. He walked the streets and met the owners of the city’s businesses, introduced them to new ideas in office furnishings, suggested ways to save space, found ways to be more efficient, save time, and access accounts more quickly. And he showed them how all of this could save money.
In 1927 he married Eugenia Evans. The couple had four children: James A. Head Jr., Alan E. Head, Eugene E. Head, and Virginia Head Gross. Mrs. Head passed away in 1981.
Things developed quickly. The office became too small, more employees were needed, and product lines were added, including a new, more comfortable, adjustable office chair that provided back support to the many female employees who sat most of the day at a desk or table. From there, the company progressed to selling methods of record protection, and then to dictation machines, copiers, and other equipment, with Head always bringing new ideas in offices supplies to his customers.
Banks, insurance companies, libraries, government offices – all were equipped by Head’s Office Products.
When World War II came along, Head was 41 years old and had three children, and was not accepted for duty. But he used his sales and marketing savvy to support the war effort in dozens of ways: Chairing the Victory Bond drives (he offered nylon hose to those who bought the bonds), arranging other war memorials, and thank-you tributes to returning servicemen after the war.
Head Office Products continued to grow and flourish, adding new products and offering new ideas. Head’s company equipped the University of Alabama Law School Library, the state Supreme Court Library, the Amelia Gorgas Library, and the Auburn University Library, among many others. In fact, Head estimates that his company has equipped 80 percent of the libraries in Alabama. The Alabama Library Association has recognized him for his work in helping communities around the state garner local support for constructing community libraries, especially in the 1970s as libraries began to be considered essential to the community.
Always on the lookout for new products and new ways to help his customers, Head discovered in Wisconsin a device called a “stack mover” that could be used to move large numbers of books at one time, keeping them in order so that carpets and floors could be cleaned or replaced, and libraries could be rearranged, or construction work could be done. The device has saved Alabama libraries thousands of dollars in manpower and time. In 1996, “at the tender middle age of 92,” as Head puts it, he decided to retire. Head sold his company to Scholar Craft Products, Inc., a Birmingham business.
Throughout his busy life, Head has made time to serve the city of Birmingham and the state of Alabama in a variety of positions and roles. He was one of the original 100 people who each gave $1,000 to buy the property that has become The University of Alabama at Birmingham.
He has served as president of the Birmingham Rotary Club, president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, general chairman of the United Appeal and Red Cross, as a member of the Alabama Advisory Committee to the Civil Rights Committee, and as a member of the Samford University Board of Trustees. He served on the Jefferson County Personnel Board and headed the 1968 fundraising campaign for the Alabama Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation.
He has been recognized for his work with a variety of awards, including his selection as Birmingham’s “Man of the Year” in 1949. In 1988, he was honored with a dinner given by Friends of the Birmingham Public Library.
But he lists his service on the state chapter of the National Association of Christians and Jews and the battle against intolerance as “the most important thing I have ever done.” He served the association for 60 years, 20 of those as chairman emeritus.
Head remains active with his friends from the Birmingham Rotary Club and enjoys the company of his four children, 11 grandchildren, and 21 great-grandchildren, three of who have just graduated from college.
So, the next time you seek sanctuary in one of the state’s many libraries, say a word of thanks to Jim Head. Augustine Birrell, the English politician, and man of letters wrote that “Libraries are not made; they grow.” Because of Jim Head, the libraries in Alabama are flourishing.
