Hattie Carnegie

Hattie Carnegie (15 March 1880 – 22 February 1956) was a fashion entrepreneur based in New York City from the 1920s to the 1950s. She was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary as Henrietta Kanengeiser. By her early 20s, Hattie had taken the surname Carnegie as an homage to Andrew Carnegie, the richest man in the United States at the time.

Born into poverty, Carnegie was the second of seven children born to Hannah (née Kraenzer) and Issac Kanengeiser. When Hattie was a young girl, the family emigrated to the United States, settling on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She attended public school until her father died in 1902. In order to help support her family, Carnegie took a job as a messenger at Macy's at age thirteen. At age fifteen, she modeled and trimmed hats at a millinery manufacturer.

In 1909, Carnegie launched a hat making business with Rose Roth. Roth was a dressmaker and Carnegie designed hats. By 1919, Roth had left the business and Carnegie was the sole proprietor of Hattie Carnegie, Inc. At this point, Carnegie had a working capital of $100,000. She began travelling to Paris to buy original dresses to both sell in her shop and use as inspiration for her own designs. In 1925, Carnegie was successful enough to buy a building just off Park Avenue at 42 East 49th Street. By 1929, the business has sales of $3.5 million a year. When spending decreased during the Great Depression, Carnegie created a less expensive line called Spectator Sports.

In 1928, a then-unknown Lucille Ball began working for Hattie Carnegie as an in-house model. Carnegie ordered Lucille to dye her then brown hair blonde and Lucille complied. Of this time in her life Lucille said, "Hattie taught me how to slouch properly in a $1,000 hand-sewn sequin dress and how to wear a $40,000 sable coat as casually as rabbit."

Carnegie could not sew or cut a pattern herself, but she had an eye for talent. Her company discovered some of the most prominent American fashion designers of the twentieth century, such as Norman Norell,Pauline Trigère,James Galanos, and Clare McCardell. For nearly a decade, the made-to-order department was headed by Pauline Fairfax Potter.

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