Grant was born on June 27, 1876, in Stevensville, Pennsylvania, the younger son of William Thomas Grant and Amanda Louise Bird. His father was a flour miller and, later, a tea-store owner in Fall River, Massachusetts. Both businesses were unsuccessful. After the tea-store venture, the family moved to Malden, Massachusetts, where Grant grew up.
Grant was educated in Malden, Massachusetts, attending public schools there. He left high school in the middle of his second year.
Grant earned his first income at the age of seven by running errands. He also delivered papers, assisted the operator of a butter-and-egg wagon, sold flower seeds, and worked at a drugstore soda fountain. Grant became an errand boy for a group of Boston lawyers and then worked for a wholesale shoe house in that city and in a warehouse for a whetstone manufacturer in Pike's Station, New Hamshire. In 1895, he returned to Boston and entered retailing as a clerk in a boot and shoe company, followed by jobs selling shoes in a department store and managing a shoe store in Amesbury, Massachusetts. As a shoe buyer for Almy, Bigelow and Washburn in Salem, Massachusetts, he noticed that merchandise priced at twenty-five cents moved most briskly. With his life savings of $1, 000 and an additional $7, 000 from three partners, including Almy general manager Louis K. Roskoff and W. E. Bigelow, Grant planned his first store incorporating the "magic" twenty-five-cent prices for all types of fast-moving merchandise. Grant opened his first store on the ground floor of the Lynn, Massachusetts, Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) on December 6, 1906. Gold block letters outlined in dark navy blue on an orange background soon became familiar on all Grant stores. He worked long hours while handling all buying and merchandising functions. Grant's formula for operating his stores included pleasing the customer, maintaining quick turnover of merchandise, encouraging strict economy, and establishing good social relations. In October 1908, Grant opened a second store, this one in Waterbury, Connecticut. The success of the Waterbury store marked the beginning of the Grant chain, since it gave Grant the courage to open a third store in Bridgeport, a larger city in Connecticut, followed by stores in Lewiston, Maine, and New Bedford, Massachusetts. In the first ten years, there were thirty-six stores, most located in less than the best business districts; they had to draw customers with unusual values and ingenious promotions. By 1918, the twenty-five-cent ceiling on merchandise was raised to $1. During the 1920's, the Grant chain expanded rapidly and became the most familiar name in discount retailing. In 1940, Grant instituted a no-price-limit policy, and eventually the stores, located in forty-four states, sold such big-ticket items as refrigerators, televisions, and home-workshop equipment. The first W. T. Grant store in New York City, at Sixth Avenue and Eighteenth Street, opened in 1913. Although situated in one of the city's busiest shopping districts, the store was unable to compete and was not a success. A fire soon after its opening ended the company's venture into downtown Manhattan retailing, although it did maintain its national headquarters in New York City and established successful Grant stores in other sections of the city. His experience in New York convinced Grant that the opportunity for his type of store was not to be found in big cities but in the many smaller industrial cities of the United States. The W. T. Grant Company offered stock to the public in 1928, but the William T. Grant Foundation, founded in 1936 to assist in the emotional development of the young, continued to control about 25 percent of the outstanding stock. Grant was president of the company until 1924 and thereafter chairman of the board until 1966, when he retired on his ninetieth birthday; he decided that the business needed professional managers rather than a merchant at the top. He remained as honorary board chairman until his death, although he was no longer involved in active management and drew no salary. Grant died in Greenwich, Connecticut on August 6, 1972.
Grant married Lena Blanche Brownell in 1907; they adopted two children. After she died, he married Beth Bradshaw on September 3, 1930; they adopted one child.
