#PARA PAR@ ` sTEXT ` eDemorest, Ellen Louise Curtis
1824╨1898
businesswoman
Born in Schuylerville, New York, on November 15, 1824, Ellen Curtis graduated from Schuylerville Academy at eighteen and then opened a millinery shop. She later moved the business to Troy and then to New York City, where in April 1858 she married William J. Demorest. During a brief residence in Philadelphia Ellen Demorest conceived the idea of mass-produced accurate paper patterns for home dressmaking. In 1860 she and her husband returned to New York City, where she opened ╥Madame Demorest╒s Emporium of Fashions╙ on Broadway and he began publishing the quarterly Mme. Demorest╒s Mirror of Fashions, which featured, in addition to the obligatory color fashion plates, a pattern stapled into each copy. The patterns were also distributed by themselves, soon through a nationwide network of agencies as they proved immensely popular; in their peak year, 1876, three million patterns were sold. The success of the magazine led to its becoming the expanded Demorest╒s Illustrated Monthly Magazine and Mme. Demorest╒s Mirror of Fashions in 1864 (Illustrated was dropped from name in 1865), featuring the reporting and commentary of ╥Jennie June╙ (Jane Croly).
While her husband established a mail-order operation to deal in sewing aids and other merchandise, Demorest developed a cheap hoopskirt and a new line of corsets, cosmetics, and other products, at the same time presiding over her Emporium. In addition to her business, she supported her husband in his reform work, especially the temperance crusade, and interested herself in projects for the betterment of opportunities for women. She employed a great many women herself, including a large number of African-American women on the same terms as their white co-workers, and she was active in the management of the New York Medical College for Women and the Welcome Lodging House for Women and Children. In 1868 she joined Jane Croly in organizing Sorosis, of which she became vice-president and treasurer. In the 1880s the business declined, in large part because of their failure to patent their paper pattern idea and the consequent competition of Ebenezer Butterick and others. At the same time William Demorest became more deeply involved in the Prohibition party. In 1887 Demorest sold the pattern business. Widowed in 1895, she died in New York City on August 10, 1898.
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