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Dorothy Shaver

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Dorothy Shaver
Born(1893-07-29)July 29, 1893
Center Point, Arkansas, U.S.
DiedJune 28, 1959(1959-06-28) (aged 65)
Hudson, New York, U.S.
TitlePresident of Lord & Taylor
Term1945–1959
PredecessorWalter Hoving
FatherJames D. Shaver
RelativesRobert G. Shaver (grandfather)

Dorothy Shaver (July 29, 1893 – June 28, 1959) was the first woman in the United States to head a multimillion-dollar firm.[1] She was a well known leader of the fashion industry and became president of Lord & Taylor.[2]

Life

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Dorothy Shaver was born on July 29, 1893,[3] in Center Point, Arkansas, in Howard County, Arkansas, to Sallie Hunter (née Borden) and James D. Shaver. Her paternal grandfather was Confederate officer Robert G. Shaver. Her father was a lawyer and judge.[1][4] When she was five years old, the family moved to Mena, Arkansas, and James Shaver opened a law practice.[1] The Shaver House has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1979.

Shaver graduated from high school in 1910 at the age of 17 and she was chosen by her classmates to give the commencement address.[5] She then earned a teaching certificate from the University of Arkansas.[5] Shaver returned to Mena and began teaching seventh grade. Her teaching career ended abruptly in May 1914, when the local board refused to renew the contracts of Shaver and three other single female teachers because they had attended an unchaperoned dance.[1]

In 1916, Shaver and her younger sister Elsie moved to Chicago. While in Chicago, Dorothy studied English literature at the University of Chicago.[5] A year later, the sisters moved to New York City. Elsie began making dolls out of bandage cotton painted in pastel colors.[6] Inspired by the success of the Kewpie Doll, Dorothy began selling five different versions of Elsie's Little Shaver dolls. A Lord & Taylor executive and distant cousin named Samuel Reyburn was impressed by the dolls and helped the sisters set up a workshop producing dolls for the next four years.[7]

Samuel Reyburn hired Dorothy to head comparison shopping bureau at Lord & Taylor in 1921.[5] A year later, she established an interior decorating service at Lord & Taylor.[8] Shaver was elected to the store's board of directors in 1927.[9]

In 1928, Shaver mounted the Exposition of Modern French Decorative Art at Lord & Taylor as a spin-off of the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes. In addition to furniture and home goods, Shaver's Exposition included paintings by artists such as Picasso, Utrillo, and Derain.[9]

Having made a splash in the media with her French design, Shaver switched her focus to American designers.[9] In 1929, she hired Neysa McNein and other American artists to create fabrics with American themes for Lord & Taylor.[9]

Shaver became one of the founding member of the Fashion Group in February 1931. The Fashion Group was a networking organization for women in the fashion industry. Other founding members included Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein.[10]

In 1932, Shaver created the American Look program to promote American fashion designers. Between 1932 and 1939, the American Look program featured more than sixty designers, including Clare Potter, Merry Hull, Nettie Rosenstein, and Lilly Dache. The clothing lines were moderately priced, well-constructed sportswear.[9]

Shaver succeeded Walter Hoving as president of Lord & Taylor in 1945.[11] She was given a salary of $110,000.[1] This was the highest salary on record for an American woman at that time,[12] and although it was noted by the author of an article in Life Magazine that the salary was only a quarter of what some "similarly placed male CEOs earned" [comparing it with Thomas J. Watson Sr., President of International Business Machines],[7] the salary was commensurate with what Lord & Taylor paid its top male executives. Walter Hoving, her predecessor, was earning a salary after 10 years as chief executive of $127,015 in 1944.[13]

In 1947, Life Magazine called Shaver "the No. 1 American career woman."[14] By that point, she was managing a $40 million business.[14]

Shaver served as president of Lord & Taylor until her death .[a] She died on June 28, 1959, at Hudson Hospital in Hudson, New York.[16] By the time of her death, sales at Lord & Taylor reached $100 million a year.[17]

In 2026, a food hall named after Shaver opened on the ground floor of the Lord & Taylor Building in Midtown Manhattan. The 35,000-square-foot (3,300 m2) food hall, named "Shaver Hall", features 11 food vendors and three restaurants.[18][19]

Designers promoted

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Promoted by Shaver and sold at Lord & Taylor[9][20]

Notes

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  1. ↑ Elsie had Dorothy's gravestone inscribed with a birth year of 1898 to mask her true age.[15]

References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Dorothy Shaver". University of Arkansas Press. Retrieved 2015-09-18.
  2. ↑ Amerian, Stephanie (June 2009). "Fifth Avenue's First Lady: Dorothy Shaver". UCLA: Travel Grants. Retrieved 3 April 2017.
  3. ↑ Williams, Nancy A.; Whayne, Jeannie M. (2000-01-01). Arkansas Biography: A Collection of Notable Lives. University of Arkansas Press. ISBN 9781557285874.
  4. ↑ "American's No. 1 Career Woman Dies". Helena World and East Arkansas Record. June 29, 1959. p. 2. Retrieved May 26, 2026 – via Newspapers.com.Open access icon
  5. 1 2 3 4 Bryant, Jill (2013). Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs. Second Story Press. ISBN 9781927583135.
  6. ↑ "Obit Page". The New York Times. 1981-06-17. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  7. 1 2 Perkins, Jeanne (1947-05-12). "No. 1 Career Woman". Life. Retrieved 2015-09-18.
  8. ↑ Leach, William (1993). Land of Desire. New York: Pantheon Books. p. 315. ISBN 9780307761149.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Dorothy Shaver" (PDF). Dorothy Shaver: The First Lady of Retailing. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2015-09-18.
  10. ↑ Sheridan, Jayne (2013-09-03). Fashion, Media, Promotion: The New Black Magic. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781118815021.
  11. ↑ F, José Blanco; Hunt-Hurst, Patricia Kay; Lee, Heather Vaughan; Doering, Mary (2015-11-23). Clothing and Fashion: American Fashion from Head to Toe. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781610693103.
  12. ↑ Olsen, Kirstin (1994-01-01). Chronology of Women's History. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 9780313288036.
  13. ↑ "Associated Dry Goods Corp. Pays Hoving $127,015 Remuneration". The Louisville Courier-Journal (Associated Press). June 24, 1944. Retrieved November 4, 2018.
  14. 1 2 Perkinds, Jeanne (1947-05-12). "No. 1 Career Woman". LIFE. Time Inc. pp. 117–128.
  15. ↑ Satow, Julie (2024). When Women Ran Fifth Avenue. Knopf Doubleday. p. 233. ISBN 9780385548762.
  16. ↑ "Dorthy Shaver Dead at 61; Was Head of Lord & Taylor". New York Daily News. June 29, 1959. p. 3. Retrieved June 27, 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ Trager, James (2010-09-07). The New York Chronology: The Ultimate Compendium of Events, People, and Anecdotes from the Dutch to the Present. Zondervan. ISBN 9780062018601.
  18. ↑ Feitelberg, Rosemary (2025-04-25). "Amazon's Hank Building to Draw Back the Curtain on Shaver Hall". Women's Wear Daily. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  19. ↑ Jack, Dominique (2026-06-26). "NYC Lord & Taylor building gets new life as chef-curated dining hall". PIX11. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  20. ↑ Kennedy, Alicia; Stoehrer, Emily Banis; Calderin, Jay (2013-02-01). Fashion Design, Referenced: A Visual Guide to the History, Language, and Practice of Fashion. Rockport Publishers. ISBN 9781610582018.
  21. ↑ Strassel, Annemarie (2012). "Designing Women: Feminist Methodologies in American Fashion". Women's Studies Quarterly. 41 (1/2): 35–59. ISSN 0732-1562. JSTOR 23611770.
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