The Barbizon by Paulina Bren (ebook reader browser TXT) 📕

The product fit the very image: Doherty, Katharine Gibbs, 63.

In 1933, she would marry: James A. Welu, “Obituaries: Helen Estabrook Stoddard,” American Antiquarian Society, https://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44525161.pdf.

The young women studying: Doherty, Katharine Gibbs, 49.

The future British prime minister: Bennett Lowenthal, “The Jumpers of ’29,” Washington Post, October 25, 1987.

On Tuesday, December 5, 1933: Louis Sobol, “Speakeasy” (Part 1), Hearst’s International—Cosmopolitan, March 1934.

The Barbizon Hotel had not been cheap: “New York. The Wonder City. Intimate Inside Life in the Year 1932,” Hotel Files: Barbizon, New-York Historical Society Archives, New York, New York [hereafter cited as N-YHS].

With the Great Depression fully under way: “Barbizon Default,” New York Sun, April 20, 1931.

Chase National Bank stepped in: “Takes Over the Barbizon,” New York Times, April 18, 1931.

The following year, Chase: Untitled short report, Sun, June 2, 1932, Hotel Files: Barbizon, N-YHS.

Then just a month later: “Bondholders Buy Barbizon Hotel,” Sun, July 5, 1932, Hotel Files: Barbizon, N-YHS.

The lucky bidder: “Recorded Mortgages,” Sun, July 28, 1932, Hotel Files: Barbizon, N-YHS.

By 1934, there would be: Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New York: Free Press, 1997), 203.

Black women looking for domestic work: Evans, Born for Liberty, 215.

More than 80 percent: Evans, Born for Liberty, 202.

There was also widespread belief: Nancy Woloch, Women and the American Experience, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000), 457.

“To a Young Woman Who Is a Poet”: Advertisement, New Yorker, September 24, 1932, 58.

“Intelligent Young Women LIVE Intelligently!”: Advertisement, New Yorker, October 21, 1933, 91.

“You Woman What Now?”: Advertisement, New Yorker, September 15, 1934, 106.

By 1932, twenty-six states: Betsy Israel, Bachelor Girl: The Secret History of Single Women in the Twentieth Century (New York: William Morrow, 2002), 150.

As FDR was being inaugurated: Woloch, Women and the American Experience, 438–39.

The stock market crash had exposed: Woloch, Women and the American Experience, 439.

only one-third of Barnard College’s class: Israel, Bachelor Girl, 152.

To accommodate the flood of students: 1937 Katharine Gibbs Manual of Style. From the personal archives of Susan Camp [hereafter cited as SC], generously shared with the author.

In 1934, Katharine’s elder son: Doherty, Katharine Gibbs, 70.

Its location was touted: Katharine Gibbs New York Catalog, 1939–40, 21, SC.

Their meals (breakfast and dinner): Katharine Gibbs New York Catalog, 1939–40, 21–22, SC.

They also had their own: Nan Robertson, “Where the Boys Are Not,” Saturday Evening Post, October 19, 1963, 29.

The back pages of the Gibbs yearbook: 1943 Platen, Gibbs School Yearbook, SC.

Never mind that many Depression-era students: Doherty, Katharine Gibbs, 76–77.

Frances Fonda, the future mother: Doherty, Katharine Gibbs, 86.

This recognition was often reinforced: “Woman’s Work to Be Discussed,” New York Times, January 6, 1935.

The 1930s on-screen heroine: Woloch, Women and the American Experience, 468.

A 1935 handbook So You Want to Be a Reporter: Israel, Bachelor Girl, 153.

Elizabeth Curtis, social director: “Girls Capable of Better Work in Offices or Professions If They Leave Family Home,” Washington Post, December 7, 1935.

As Powers boasted: John Robert Powers, The Powers Girls (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1941).

Elsa Maxwell, the Waldorf Astoria in-house party hostess: Powers, Powers Girls.

Because blond and cute: E. J. Kahn, “Profiles: Powers Model,” New Yorker, September 14, 1940, 24.

These models were not supermodels: Nicole Levy, “This NYC Modeling Agency Shaped the Fashion World as We Know It,” This Is New York: A Blog About New York Neighborhoods, September 7, 2016.

Evelyn had always dreamed of New York: Evelyn B. Echols, They Said I Couldn’t Do It, but I Did! (Chicago: Ampersand, Inc., 2008), 29.

The hospital was owned: Echols, They Said I Couldn’t Do It, but I Did!, 29.

While Evelyn was waiting: Echols, They Said I Couldn’t Do It, but I Did!, 29–30.

Not for nothing had she won: Kahn, “Profiles: Powers Model.”

In 1938, Kathryn Scola: Alice Hughes, “A Woman’s New York: Hollywood Is Making Movie on New York’s ‘Women-Only’ Hotel,” Washington Post, July 12, 1939.

Her parties for the rich and famous: Frank S. Nugent, “THE SCREEN; A True-Confessional Romance,” New York Times, August 26, 1939.

The movie’s heroine, Marcia Bromely: Nugent, “THE SCREEN.”

So it was that Phyllis McCarthy: St. Clair McKelway to Bruno R. Wiedermann, September 28, 1939, accessed November 20, 2018, https://microship.com/st-clair-mckelway-recommends-phyllis-mccarthy-to-barbizon/. Blog by Ms. McCarthy’s son, Steve K. Roberts, based on the letter and newspaper clipping he found; excerpted on NPR’s All Things Considered on October 21, 2014. I would like to thank Mr. Roberts for generously sharing this memorabilia.

That this was indeed Phyllis McCarthy’s approach: George I. Bushfield, “Just for the fun of it!” accessed November 20, 2018, https://microship.com/st-clair-mckelway-recommends-phyllis-mccarthy-to-barbizon/.

Robin Chandler Duke, later a Wall Street pioneer: William Norwich, “The Trailblazer,” Vogue, August 2006.

But the economic climate: “New Plan in Effect on the Ritz Tower; Mortgage Is Paid Off on Barbizon Hotel,” New York Times, February 2, 1940.

As if to mark this moment: “New Marquee Erected at the Hotel Barbizon,” Gazette, June 1, 1940.

Evelyn Echols, whom Mr. Powers: Echols, They Said I Couldn’t Do It, but I Did!, 35.

When General “Wild Bill” Donovan: Doherty, Katharine Gibbs, 82.

CHAPTER THREE

Betsy Talbot Blackwell was never willing: Angela Taylor, “At Mademoiselle, Changing of the Guard,” New York Times, April 4, 1971.

Fifty years later she would fondly recall that same hat: Betsy Talbot Blackwell to Dr. Susan Spencer, December 2, 1965, box 7 correspondence, 1965, the Betsy Talbot Blackwell Collection, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie [hereafter cited as BTBC].

BTB’s father, Hayden Talbot: As quoted in Cathy Ciccolella’s college essay, November 11, 1963, box 7 correspondence, 1963, BTBC.

She spied them in a shop window: Taylor, “At Mademoiselle.” Charm magazine of the 1920s was different from the one started in the 1940s.

The daughter of the vice president of Street & Smith: “Memo from the Editor” (column), box 7 correspondence, 1965, BTBC.

On a miserable February morning: “Memo from the Editor,” BTBC.

The salaries on offer were low: “Memo from the Editor,” BTBC.

She changed around the entire magazine: “A Short History of Mademoiselle,” 1945, online, BTBC.

Blackwell directed her staff: “A Short History of Mademoiselle,” 1965, draft version, online, BTBC.

In fact, she seemed to be perpetually: Neva Nelson’s recollection. As quoted in Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York,