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Lena Himmelstein Bryant

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Entrepreneur

The Resume

    (March 11, 1877-September 26, 1951)
    Born in Kaunas, Lithuania
    Birth name was Lena Himmelstein
    Married jeweler David Bryant (1899) and mechanical engineer Albert Martin (1909)
    Founded a clothing store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan (1904)
    Designed the first commercially sold maternity dresses
    Added clothing designed for plus-sized women
    First branch store opened in Chicago (1915)
    Company sales exceeded $45 million at her death

Why she might be annoying:

    She got the money for her first store from her brother-in-law.
    The company became Lane Bryant when her first name was misspelled on an application for a bank account and she was too embarrassed to correct the error.
    Early sales were slow due to the reluctance of newspapers to carry ads for maternity wear.

Why she might not be annoying:

    She was raised by her grandparents after her parents were murdered in an anti-Jewish pogrom.
    After convincing the New York Herald to accept an ad, her stock of maternity dresses sold out in a day (1911).
    To design dresses for plus-sized women, she personally measured 4,500 female customers of her store and studied statistics gathered on 200,000 additional women.
    After World War II, she opened clothing donation centers in her stores to benefit displaced persons in Europe.
    She offered employees profit sharing, pensions, medical and disability insurance, and group life insurance plans.

Credit: C. Fishel


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Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying