The Zale Corporation is, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, a leading specialty retailer of jewelry in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

. The Zale Corporation was incorporated in Delaware

Delaware

Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...

 in 1993. The principal executive offices are located in Irving, Texas

Irving, Texas

Irving is a city located in the U.S. state of Texas within Dallas County. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city population was 216,290. Irving is within the Dallas–Plano–Irving metropolitan division of the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area, designated...

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The company began in 1924 in Wichita Falls

Wichita Falls, Texas

Wichita Falls is a city in and the county seat of Wichita County, Texas, United States, United States. Wichita Falls is the principal city of the Wichita Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Archer, Clay and Wichita counties. According to the U.S. Census estimate of 2010,...

, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, when Morris (M.B.) Zale, William Zale, and Ben Lipshy opened the first Zales Jewelers store. At the time, credit

Credit (finance)

Credit is the trust which allows one party to provide resources to another party where that second party does not reimburse the first party immediately , but instead arranges either to repay or return those resources at a later date. The resources provided may be financial Credit is the trust...

 plans were not common, so their concept of offering one was fairly revolutionary, marketed under the slogan, "a penny down and a dollar a week." By the beginning of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the company had expanded to a dozen stores throughout Texas and Oklahoma

Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...

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During the lean war years, Zales maintained its prices and looked for expansion opportunities.