March is Jewish Women’s History Month

In 2002, the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Mass., opened a new exhibit, Enterprising Women: 250 Years of American Business, which celebrated the accomplishments of female entrepreneurs. Inspired by this exhibit, Gail Reimer, Director of the Jewish Women’s Archive (JWA), invited me to write a series of articles on Jewish women entrepreneurs. The mission of the JWA is to uncover, chronicle and transmit to a broad public the rich history of American Jewish women; therefore, Gail is pleased to share these articles with the readers of The Jewish Voice, in celebration of Jewish Women’s History Month.

Lane Bryant Maslin 1877-1951

In Victorian tradition it was considered inappropriate for proper pregnant ladies to appear in public. It is fortunate for today’s women that one such proper lady was a customer of Lane Bryant, a talented New York seamstress who opened her own dress shop in 1904. According to historian Louise Klaber, when one of Bryant’s pregnant customers asked Lane to design something “presentable but comfortable” to wear on the street, Lane created a dress with an elasticized waistband and an accordion-pleated skirt—the first known commercial maternity dress. The style was an instant success. It appealed to the increasing number of middle-class women who wanted to break with Victorian tradition and also to poorer pregnant women who had no choice but to work. Maternity dresses soon became the best-selling item in Bryant’s shop. But potential sales were limited because, in Victorian tradition, New York’s newspapers would not accept advertising for maternity clothes. Lane and her new husband, Albert Maslin, solved this problem by creating the first mail-order catalog for maternity wear. By 1917 mail order sales exceeded a million dollars; by 1950 Lane Bryant was the sixth-largest mail order retailer in the United States.

TOBY ROSSNER (tobyross@cox.net) was the Director of Media Services at the Bureau of Jewish Education from 1978 to 2002.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third article in a series on the history of Jewish women entrepreneurs.