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MONONGALIA COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA - BIOS: DANCER, Robert Clinton (published 1923)
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Submitted by
Valerie Crook
vfcrook@trellis.net
September 12, 1999
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 233-234
Monongalia County
ROBERT CLINTON DANCER is president and general man-
ager of R. C. Dancer, Incorporated, a business that stands
in the very front rank among the wholesale wall paper
houses of the Ohio Valley. The business, in fact, is national
in scope. Mr. Dancer was some years ago a modest merchant
in wall paper and floor coverings at Mannington, West
Virginia, but later moved his business to Wheeling, where
it has enjoyed its greatest growth and prosperity and has
become exclusively a wall paper house.
One of the fundamental principles for success in mer-
chandising is giving and maintaining the personal touch
between the merchant and his customer. With the devel-
opment and complex organization of merchandising, to a
point where the merchant is really a big executive who
seldom meets even a small percentage of his "trade," a
substitute for the personal touch has been found in the
product of the busy typewriter and in that vital and
vigorous form of communication generally described as
advertising. Advertising is, in fact, the great modern
means utilized by merchant manufacturer in telling his
customers what he has to sell and vouching for its merits.
In the development of this modern phase of the mercantile
business Mr. Dancer has achieved a most unusual success,
and that success has been instrumental in the growth of
his great business at Wheeling. In the interest of his
business he has for about a year issued a monthly publica-
tion known as "the Sample Stand," and through this,
in addition to his large volume of private correspondence,
he is able to keep his customers and trade friends apprised
of new developments in the wall paper business and his
own qualifications to supply the needs of the trade. The
novel quality of his little publication has attracted many
favorable comments from some of the foremost manu-
facturers, importers and dealers in wall paper throughout
the country. Here it is possible to quote only one of the
many letters Mr. Dancer receives commending his publica-
tion. The following is a paragraph from the secretary of
one of the large manufacturers of paper hanging at
Buffalo: "Such an attractive means of communication with
your customers, advising them educationally and other-
wise, for the good of their business, is something which
should result in much mutual benefit, and we think you
have gotten off to a good start. In practice, yon are
a good subject for membership in Rotary, whose motto is:
'He profits most who serves best.' "
Mr. Dancer was born at Mannington, West Virginia,
May 29, 1875. His father, Jesse Dancer, was born in
this state in 1826 and spent his entire life in Mannington
and vicinity. He was a carpenter by trade, for some years
had charge of the building of bridges for the Baltimore
& Ohio Railway Company, and also erected many residences
and business houses in Mannington. He died in that city
in 1889. He had served the last two years of the war in
the Union Army, was always a stanch republican, was at
one time mayor of Mannington and a leading member of
the Presbyterian Church of that city. He was affiliated
with the Masonic order. Jesse Dancer was twice married.
By his first wife he had eight children, and three of them
are still living. W. S. Dancer, a contracting carpenter
at Fairmont, West Virginia; Maggie, wife of James Koon,
a farmer at Weston; and Mrs. Henry Tutt, wife of a
marble cutter living at Grafton. The second wife of Jesse
Dancer was Sarah Helms, who was born in West Virginia,
in 1844 and died at Mannington in 1909. Robert Clinton
Dancer is the only child of this marriage.
He spent his early life at Mannington, attended public
school there to the age of fourteen, and learned business
through a long and diligent practice as an employee of
the Snodgrass Brothers' general store. He remained with
that firm in a working capacity for ten years, and he and
H. B. Beaty then bought out the business and conducted
it from 1900 to 1905. In 1905 the partnership of Dancer
& Burgess was formed at Mannington, and they engaged
in the wholesale and retail wall paper and floor covering
business. In 1909, seeking a more central city for their
growing business, they removed to Wheeling, and in 1914
the partnership was dissolved and since then Mr. Dancer
has been the active head of the establishment. For some
years the business has been exclusively wall paper, and
this is without doubt the largest wholesale concern in West
Virginia in this line. The store and offices are at 1121
Market Street, the store extending to 1118 Main Street.
Mr. Dancer handles one of the finest lines of wall paper
in the United States, and he does a large business even in
New York City and as far west as the Pacific Coast. In
December, 1920, he incorporated as R. C. Dancer, In-
corporated, of which he is president and general manager.
Mr. Dancer is also a director of the Quarter Savings &
Trust Company of Wheeling. He is a republican, a mem-
ber of Wheeling Lodge No. 5, F. and A. M., West Virginia
Consistory No. 1, of the Scottish Rite, Wheeling Lodge No.
28, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is a mem-
ber of the Rotary Club, the Wheeling Country Club and
the Fort Henry Club. His home is at Birch Lynn, Wheel-
ing. In 1905, at Mannington, Mr. Dancer married Miss
Bessie Craker, daughter of John and Rose (Skinner) Craker,
now deceased. Her father was an oil operator. Mrs. Dancer
is a graduate of Keemar College of Hagerstown, Maryland.
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