About This Book
Men owned the buildings, but inside the great American department store, women ruled.
Journalist Julie Satow—author of The Plaza—profiles three trailblazers who shaped retail's golden age: Hortense Odlum, who arrived at Bonwit Teller as a housewife and left as its chief executive; Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor, who championed American designers during World War II and became the first businesswoman to earn a $1 million salary; and Geraldine Stutz, who reimagined Henri Bendel and inspired decades of imitators. Together they turned the department store into something far more radical than a place to shop.
When Women Ran Fifth Avenue is for readers who want their business history with glamour intact—a richly reported account of ambition, rivalry and reinvention that reveals how three visionary women carved out power in an era that rarely offered it to them.