JoAnn Fabrics
US arts and crafts retail chain
Jo-Ann Stores, LLC, (stylized JOANN) was an American specialty retail chain that specialized in fabrics and arts and crafts supplies. The chain was based in Hudson, Ohio and operated over 800 stores across 49 U.S. states. By the end of February 2025, the company began the process of liquidating all of its stores after failing to obtain a buyer. Two hundred fifty-five of the chain's stores were shuttered by the end of April, while the remaining 535 locations were permanently closed by May 30, 2025. Arts and crafts retailer Michaels acquired Joann's intellectual property and private labels, but none of its physical stores.
History
Origin
German immigrants Hilda and Berthold Reich, Sigmund and Mathilda Rohrbach, and Justin and Alma Zimmerman opened the Cleveland Fabric Shop in Cleveland, Ohio in 1943. After further expansion, the store's name was changed to Jo-Ann Fabrics in 1963. The store's name was created by combining the names of the daughters from both families: Joan and Jacqueline Ann.
Jo-Ann Fabrics became a publicly held corporation traded on the American Stock Exchange under the name of Fabri-Centers of America, Inc. in 1969.
“JoAnn Fabrics” enters the record as uS arts and crafts retail chain. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what JoAnn, Fabrics and arts can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6203968. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2025, 1943, 1963 and 1969.
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This entry incorporates text from “JoAnn Fabrics” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.