Kelly's Thoughts & Ramblings

When Woman Ran Fifth Avenue by Julie Satow

BOOK BLURB FROM AMAZON:

The twentieth century American department store: a palace of consumption where every wish could be met under one roof – afternoon tea, a stroll through the latest fashions, a wedding (or funeral) planned. It was a place where women, shopper and shopgirl alike, could stake out a newfound independence. Whether in New York or Chicago or on Main Street, USA, men owned the buildings, but inside, women ruled.

In this hothouse atmosphere, three women rose to the top. In the 1930s, Hortense Odlum of Bonwit Teller came to her husband’s department store as a housewife tasked with attracting more shoppers like herself, and wound up running the company. Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor championed American designers during World War II–before which US fashions were almost exclusively Parisian copies–becoming the first businesswoman to earn a $1 million salary. And in the 1960s Geraldine Stutz of Henri Bendel re-invented the look of the modern department store. With a preternatural sense for trends, she inspired a devoted following of ultra-chic shoppers as well as decades of copycats.

In When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, journalist Julie Satow draws back the curtain on three visionaries who took great risks, forging new paths for the women who followed in their footsteps. This stylish account, rich with personal drama and trade secrets, captures the department store in all its glitz, decadence, and fun, and showcases the women who made that beautifully curated world go round.

FIRST SENTENCE:

(Prologue) “As ice gathered several inches thick on the Hudson River and the mercury plummeted below freezing, Hortense Odlum stepped from her chauffeured car onto the Fifth Avenue sidewalk.”

MEMORABLE MOMENTS:

(11%) “As the Great Depression continued, women employed outside the home were increasingly described in the popular press as impertinent interlopers who stole jobs from more deserving men. Single mothers who toiled at the mill to feed their children, for example, or daughters who worked on the factory lines to support their out-of-work fathers were swept up in rhetoric that portrayed them as selfish, even immoral. The liberal journalist and editor Norman Cousins wrote of the assault on female laborers in his essay “Will Women Lose Their Jobs?” In it, he tidily summed up the opposing view: “There are approximately 10 million people out of work in the United States today. There are also 10 million or more women, married or single, who are jobholders. Simply fire the women, who shouldn’t be working anyway, and hire the men. Presto! No unemployment. No relief rolls. No Depression.””

MY THOUGHTS:

I enjoy a good social history, especially when it focuses on women’s history, so I looked forward to this book chosen as our July book club selection. I planned to listen to the audiobook (which is the only version at my digital library), but when I visited Amazon to look up the first sentence I realized there were many photos included in the book. I decided to splurge on the Kindle version. I’m glad I did since the photos were some of the best parts of the book.

It’s a well-written, well-researched account of three women who were prominent in the world of department stores and fashion in the twentieth century. It’s not a topic I know much about (outside of this event) and unsurprisingly I had never heard of the women and only knew one of the featured department stores (Lord & Taylor). As the book progressed to the second half of the century I recognized far more of the names mentioned. Some parts were a bit slow for me, but overall I liked the book and learned a lot. I was often drawn to the architectural descriptions and would love to have walked through the “Street of Shops” on the ground floor of Henri Bendel. Bonwit Teller was purchased and demolished to build Trump Towers and true to form, Trump reneged on his promise to save the iconic relief panels promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, instead destroying them. Are you surprised? I’m not. There’s even a reference to Jeffrey Epstein in the book. Ugh. I also enjoyed the anecdotes of window dressing incidents and the fascinating section on mannequins. It’s one of those books I enjoyed more in hindsight than as I was reading it.

Book 2

Author’s last name begins with an S