This Week in Women’s Business History

March 9 – 15

Mar. 9, 1878
Mary Augusta Lindsley is born. She was manager of Washington, DC’s Grace Dodge Hotel.

Mar. 10, 1903
Clare Booth Luce is born. She was managing editor of Vanity Fair magazine, a playwright, and served as US Ambassador to Italy.

Mar. 11, 1957
Jessamine G. Hoagland dies. Hoagland was a member of the board of directors of National City Bank of Chicago and manager of its savings department.

Mar. 12, 1802
Juana Briones is born. She was a California landowner with properties around the San Francisco Bay area including a 4,400 acre ranch, Rancho La Purísima Concepción, in present day Palo Alto.

Mar. 13, 1924
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin dies. Ruffin was a journalist, suffragist, and civil rights leader. She co-founded the American Women Suffrage Association, the NAACP, and the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. She also founded the first newspaper by and for Black women, the Woman’s Era, and published it for seven years.

Mar. 14, 1965
Clara Barck Welles dies. The Kalo Shop, founded by Barck Welles in 1900, produced silver objects and jewelry for much of the 20th century. Barck Welles was the firm’s main designer and principal of the business. At its peak the firm included twenty-five silversmiths, both male and female.

Mar. 15, 1867
Mary Chase Perry Stratton is born. She was a ceramic artist and co-founder of the Pewabic Pottery (which exists today as a nonprofit organization).

Last week in women’s business history

Mar. 2, 1925
Nathalie Laimbeer, the first female executive at National City Bank (now CitiBank), begins work as assistant cashier and head of the Women’s Department.

Mar. 3, 1890
Chase Going Woodhouse is born. A professor of economics who moved into politics, she served as Connecticut’s secretary of state then in the US House of Representatives.

Mar. 4, 1944
Fannie Barrier Williams dies. Williams helped found the National Association of Colored Women, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Provident Hospital in Chicago. She was the first woman and first African-American to serve on the board of the Chicago Public Library.

Mar. 5, 1885
Louise Pearce is born. She was president of the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania from 1946 until 1951.

Mar. 6, 1953
Carrie Marcus Neiman dies. At the time of her death, Neiman was chairman of the board of Neiman-Marcus, the store she co-founded in 1907 with her brother and former husband. For years, Neiman chose the clothing that brought in a wealthy clientele. Throughout her entire career she set the standard of service for which the store was known.

Mar. 7, 1921
Ruth “Bazy” McCormick Tankersley is born. A member of the family that owned the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News, she was publisher of Washington Times-Herald from 1949 until 1951.

Mar. 8, 1875
Lula Cusenbary is born. She was vice president of the Bank of Hydro, Oklahoma.