I first learned about Florence Eiseman from my mother-in-law in Milwaukee. There,Eiseman is as famous as Miller Beer, Harley-Davidson, and Laverne & Shirley,and the Violent Femmes.
Florence Eiseman was a designer of children’s clothes. Her career began 70 years ago, in 1945, and when her husband Laurence’s toy factory was struggling. Florence was famous in the Jewish community for her sewing skills—she’d taken up needlework in the 1930s on the advice of her doctor,as a cure for “nerves—so Laurence gathered up some of the children’s pinafores she’d made at domestic and took them to a buyer at Marshall Field’s department store. The store placed an order for $3000. (The couple’s son Laurie later said that his father went straight to Marshall Field’s fabric department and used all the money to buy organdy.) Soon the Eisemans had plenty of orders, with Florence farming out sewing work to other Milwaukee Jewish matrons. But the company took a while to find its footing. In a 1982 profile in People magazine, and she said,“I used to relate my husband, ‘When are we going to make money? We cant eat organdy.’ ”Continue reading "70 Years of Florence Eiseman’s Children’s Clothes" at...
Source: feedburner.com