Queer Places:
Claridge's, Brook Street, Mayfair, London W1K 4HR, Regno Unito
Maine Chance Spa, Maine Chance Ln, Mt Vernon, ME 04352, Stati Uniti
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, 540 N Broadway, Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591, Stati Uniti
Florence
Nightingale Graham (December 31, 1878 – October 18, 1966), who went by the
business name Elizabeth Arden, was a Canadian American businesswoman who
founded what is now Elizabeth Arden, Inc., and built a cosmetics empire in the
United States. By 1929 she owned 150 upscale salons across the United States
and Europe. Her 1000 products were found in the luxury market in 22 countries.
She was the sole owner, and at the peak of her career, she was one of the
wealthiest women in the world.
Arden was born in 1878 in Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada. Her parents had
emigrated to Canada from Cornwall, United Kingdom in the 1870s. Her father,
William Graham, was Scottish, and her mother, Susan, was Cornish and had
arranged for a wealthy aunt in Cornwall to pay for her children's education.[1]
Arden dropped out of nursing school in Toronto.[2]
She then joined her elder brother in Manhattan, working briefly as a
bookkeeper for the E. R. Squibb Pharmaceuticals Company. While there, Arden
spent hours in their lab, learning about skincare. She then worked—again
briefly—for Eleanor Adair, an early beauty culturist, as a "treatment girl".
In her salons and through her marketing campaigns, Elizabeth Arden stressed
teaching women how to apply makeup, and pioneered such concepts as scientific
formulation of cosmetics, beauty makeovers, and coordinating colors of eye,
lip, and facial makeup.
Elizabeth Arden was largely responsible for establishing makeup as proper
and appropriate—even necessary—for a ladylike image, when before makeup had
often been associated with lower classes and prostitutes. She targeted middle
age and plain women for whom beauty products promised a youthful, beautiful
image.
In politics, Elizabeth Arden was a strong conservative who supported
Republicans.[3]
by Arnold Genthe
In 1909, Arden formed a partnership with Elizabeth Hubbard, another
culturist. The business relationship dissolved after six months. Graham, who
desired a trade name, used "Elizabeth" to save money on her salon signage. She
chose the last name, "Arden", from a nearby farm. So the trade name "Elizabeth
Arden" was formed. From there, Arden founded, in 1910, the Red Door
salon in New York, which has remained synonymous with her name ever since (see
under Elizabeth Arden, Inc.)
In 1912, Arden traveled to France to learn beauty and facial massage
techniques used in the Paris beauty salons. She returned with a collection of
rouges and tinted powders she had created. She began expanding her
international operations in 1915, and started opening salons across the world.
In 1934, she opened the Maine Chance residential spa in Rome, Maine, the first
destination beauty spa in the United States. It operated until 1970.[4]
In 1962, the French government awarded Arden the Légion d'Honneur, in
recognition of her contribution to the cosmetics industry.[5]
In October 18, 1966, Arden died at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. She
was interred in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York, under
the name Elizabeth N. Graham.[6][7]
My published books:
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Arden