Ellen Louise Curtis Demorest (1824-1898) was an American businesswoman who forever changed the U.S. fashion industry by inventing mass-produced tissue-paper dressmaking patterns.
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Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today’s story is about an American businesswoman who forever changed the U.S. fashion industry. She was a successful milliner who is credited for inventing mass-produced tissue-paper dressmaking patterns. She established a company and magazine to sell patterns of the latest French fashions to the everyday American woman. Let’s talk about Ellen Louise Demorest.
Ellen Louise Curtis was born November 15, 1824 in Schuylerville, New York to Henry D. Curtis and Electra Abel. She was the second of eight children. Her father was a farmer and the owner of a men’s hat factory. The family lived a comfortable life, made more lively each summer by dramatic influxes of tourists.
Each year notable members of society would make their way to nearby Saratoga Springs. Ellen later wrote that the visitors turned typically dull surroundings into places that present, “ the spectacle of a grand reunion of wealth, fashion, and beauty out of doors."
From a young age, she grew interested in fashion.
After graduating from school, Ellen’s father helped her harness her interest into a career via a women’s hat shop of her own. The millinery shop was quite successful and after a year Ellen moved the shop to Troy, New York and then to Brooklyn.
In 1858, Ellen married William Jennings Demorest, a thirty-six-year-old widower with two children. The couple would also have two children of their own: a son in 1859 and a daughter in 1865. The family moved to Philadelphia where they ran an emporium.
It was there Ellen's career really took off. As the story goes, Ellen and her sister Kate were working on a system of dressmaking when they saw their African American maid cutting a dress pattern out of brown paper. Ellen was inspired by the idea to create tissue paper patterns of fashionable garments for the home sewer.
Some historians refute that the idea originated with Ellen and her maid and instead suggest it was first had by a man who would become Ellen’s rival.
Ellen’s family moved back to New York and began manufacturing patterns. They also opened a women's store on Broadway.
In the fall of 1860, Ellen and her husband began selling paper patterns and publishing a quarterly catalog called “Mirror of Fashions.” Ellen hired journalist and women’s rights advocate Jane Cunningham Croly to work for the publication.
The magazine was filled with sewing tips and tricks, pictures of accessories, sheet music, poetry, and fiction. Each issue included a tissue-paper pattern and sewing instructions. The magazine was well-timed and circulation grew quickly as sewing machines were then becoming commonplace in middle-class homes. It also featured contributors including writers Julia Ward Howe, Louisa May Alcott, and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Ellen frequently made strong statements in the magazine in support of women in the workplace. She also took firm stands on domestic abuse, prison reform, and mental health treatment, among other topics.
As the catalog business thrived, Ellen and William’s brick and mortar store on Broadway grew too. Ellen and her sister, Kate, adapted foreign styles into patterns and made samples for the store. The store’s fashion openings became major social events.
Ellen and William’s store was also notable for the couple’s hiring practices. They hired African Americans at the store on equal terms as white employees, long before integrated workplaces were a norm.
In 1876, Ellen became a founding member of Sorosis, the first professional women's club in the United States.
Throughout that decade , when most businesses were failing, Ellen and her family continued to do well. According to historians, up to three million patterns were mailed each year. But Ellen’s success did not last forever.
In the 1880s, Ellen’s empire began to decline. Ellen and William had failed to patent their paper pattern. A competitor, Ebenezer Butterick, had done so successfully. At first, Butterick stuck to men's and children's wear, but by 1867 he expanded to women's patterns too.
Ebenezer Butterick’s company remains the center of the paper pattern industry today.
In 1885, William Demorest retired to devote himself to the temperance movement. That year, heran for lieutenant governor of New York on the Prohibition ticket.
A decade later, in 1895 he died. That same year, Ellen suffered a stroke and was left bedridden. She moved into the Hotel Renaissance in New York. She died there of a cerebral hemorrhage on August 10, 1898. She was 73 years old.
Ellen Louise Demorest took her love of fashion and made it accessible to the everyday woman. In revolutionizing the fashion industry, she also committed herself to the betterment of opportunities for both white and African American women. Even though she failed to patent her patterns, her impact is still apparent today.
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