Famous 'Life Magazine' Field's Elevator Girls. (1947)

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FOR HISTORICAL CLARITY

When I write about the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, I follow this historical terminology:

• The use of old commonly used terms, disrespectful today, i.e., REDMAN or REDMEN, SAVAGES, and HALF-BREED are explained in this article.

Writing about AFRICAN-AMERICAN history, I follow these race terms:

• "NEGRO" was the term used until the mid-1960s.
• "BLACK" started being used in the mid-1960s.
• "AFRICAN-AMERICAN" [Afro-American] began usage in the late 1980s.

— PLEASE PRACTICE HISTORICISM —

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PAST IN ITS OWN CONTEXT.

 

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Marshall Field & Co., Chicago's biggest department store, decided that their elevator girls required a bit of finishing, so they were enrolled in a local charm school.

ELEVATOR STAFF at Marshall Field store, neatly aligned at their stations with the starter (left), shows the chic results of their "glamourizing."

The Marshall Field uniformed elevator girls grew so famous that Life Magazine ran a feature article in the September 15, 1947 issue about their eight-week charm and beauty course. The twice-a-week program included hair and makeup lessons, training on elocution, walking, sitting, and operating the elevator cars decorously (in a polite, controlled, and socially acceptable manner). Students are also taught to enunciate merchandise items like "lingerie, bric-a-brac, and millinery" clearly. The article noted that the "finished" ladies were happier and much more beautiful, even if there didn't seem to be a correlating increase in sales.

NEW HAIRDO for operator Ann Vratarichis skillfully swept up by an expert. The charm school also reshaped her eyebrows and the curve of her lips.

REDUCING EXERCISES include rolling inflated beach balls, calisthenics, and homework with a rolling pin. One girl lost 35 pounds during the course.

Indeed they are hopeful of following in the footsteps of a distinguished Marshall Field alumna, Mary Leta Lambour. After winning a New Orleans beauty contest in 1931, Lambour moved to Chicago and worked briefly as a $17-a-week Marshall Field's elevator girl. She was discovered by a movie scout in the store, starting her entertainment career as a cabaret singer and movie star. She is known as Dorothy Lamour.

Mary Leta Lambour (Dorothy Lamour)

Other Field's employees who became celebrities include first lady Nancy Davis Reagan (sales clerk), catalog sales pioneer Aaron Montgomery Ward (sales clerk and traveling salesman), and film and stage director Vincent Minnelli (window decorator).

Nancy Davis [Reagan] 1950.

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LIFE MAGAZINE PHOTO SHOOT - 1947

 

BEFORE AND AFTER charm school. June Wahl and Ann Vratarich.

 

AN ELEVATOR OPERATOR'S CORRECT STANDING POSITION (right) should be straight and modest, not too breezy, with the body bent and leg in the air (left).

 

CORRECT BENDING POSITION (right) is shown by an instructor. Knees should be bent and body lowered. Stooping from the waist (left) is undignified.

DICTION DRILLS teaches the girls to announce floors and merchandise and answer customers' questions in distinct, well-modulated tones.

MARSHALL FIELD AND COMPANY ARTICLES

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.