Floyd Odlum's financial decisions before the 1929 crash make him one of the richest men in America, enabling him to buy failing companies.

Dorothy Shaver and her sister Elsie arrive in New York City on a weekend trip and decide to stay permanently.

Dorothy negotiates a sale of Elsie's handmade dolls at Lord & Taylor, and the collection sells out completely.

Floyd Odlum buys the failing Bonwit Teller department store and enlists his wife Hortense to revitalize it.

Hortense Odlum becomes the first female president of a major department store, having never previously held a job.

Hortense caters Bonwit Teller to both wealthy and budget-conscious shoppers, increasing sales by 27 percent in her first year.

Dorothy Shaver launches a campaign championing American designers over French fashion, helping to establish a distinctly American fashion industry.

Geraldine Stutz is hired at Glamour magazine, launching her fashion career on the strength of her innate personal style.

Floyd Odlum's four-year affair with aviator Jackie Cochran leads Hortense to divorce him, citing extreme cruelty.

Hortense Odlum resigns as president of Bonwit Teller, publicly blaming her career for the breakdown of her marriage.

Dorothy Shaver becomes president of Lord & Taylor, earning the highest published salary ever recorded for a female executive.

Geraldine Stutz is appointed president of Henri Bendel and transforms the failing store into an exclusive destination with a street of shops design.

Dorothy Shaver dies suddenly, and nearly 1,000 mourners attend her funeral, reflecting the magnitude of her influence on American fashion.

Geraldine Stutz raises $8 million with a business partner to purchase Henri Bendel, becoming the first female owner of a major department store.

Leslie Wexner's sexist management of Henri Bendel drives out female executives, and Geraldine sells her ownership shares and leaves permanently.

Three women transformed American department stores in the mid-twentieth century through bold leadership and personal sacrifice. Hortense Odlum became the first female president of a major store when her husband bought the failing Bonwit Teller, revitalizing it before her marriage's collapse drove her to resign. Dorothy Shaver rose through Lord & Taylor from doll saleswoman to president, championing American fashion and earning the highest salary ever published for a female executive. Geraldine Stutz launched her career at Glamour before rebuilding Henri Bendel as an exclusive destination and ultimately purchasing it outright. All three women navigated a world that doubted female leadership, yet each transformed her store into a cultural institution. Their stories trace the full arc of American department stores from golden age to decline.

The headline careers of three women who ran New York's most iconic department stores.

Maggie Lena Walker opens the St. Luke Emporium in Richmond, Virginia, creating a safe shopping space for the Black community.

A white business boycott cuts off the St. Luke Emporium's suppliers, causing sales to fall nearly 60 percent and forcing the store to close.

Dorothy Shaver and Elsie decline all offers to merchandise their dolls commercially, choosing to launch their own independent business instead.

Dorothy Shaver joins Lord & Taylor's comparison shopping department and earns rapid promotions by reorganizing the store's competitive strategy.

Dorothy Shaver organizes a French Art Deco exhibition at Lord & Taylor that draws 300,000 visitors and cements her reputation as a tastemaker.

Bessie Harrison outsells all her department store colleagues during her first holiday season and is promoted to a full-time sales role.

Hortense Odlum adds a beauty salon, a private men's shopping club with whiskey and cigars, and air conditioning to Bonwit Teller.

Hortense Odlum oversees the release of Polly Tucker: Merchant, a bestselling novel about a young woman's glamorous department store career.

Lord & Taylor opens a boutique inside the store selling exclusively American-designed clothing after Nazi occupation shuts down Parisian fashion houses.

Lord & Taylor hires its first Black saleswomen as wartime defense industry work pulls white workers away from retail.

Beatrice Fox Auerbach takes over G. Fox department store and breaks with local precedent by hiring Black workers in management and sales.

Geraldine Stutz dramatically narrows the clothing sizes stocked at Henri Bendel, defining the Bendel Look as exclusive to wealthy and thin women.

Lord & Taylor opens its largest suburban branch outside Philadelphia, unintentionally drawing shoppers away from the flagship store.

Adel Rootstein builds a lightweight fiberglass mannequin based on the model Twiggy, revolutionizing department store window displays.

Henri Bendel closes permanently and Lord & Taylor transitions to an online-only model, marking the end of the golden age of American department stores.

Behind the headline careers of three pioneering executives lay a rich network of secondary stories that shaped American retail. Maggie Lena Walker fought racial hostility to open and sustain a department store for Black shoppers in Richmond, Virginia, before being forced to close by a coordinated white business boycott. Meanwhile, women like Bessie Harrison and Beatrice Fox Auerbach quietly broke barriers in department stores across the country. At Bonwit Teller and Lord & Taylor, Hortense Odlum and Dorothy Shaver made decisions that rippled through the fashion world, from publishing bestselling novels to hiring the first Black saleswomen. Geraldine Stutz's controversial size restrictions at Henri Bendel illustrated the darker side of exclusive fashion culture. These secondary events reveal the full complexity of a world where women wielded unexpected power in American retail, for better and for worse.

The supporting stories and milestones that shaped the golden age of American retail.

Hortense Odlum's humiliating experience shopping on a tight budget as a young mother shapes her entire retail philosophy years later.

Elsie Shaver grows tired of making dolls and insists on closing the Little Shavers business, forcing Dorothy to seek work elsewhere.

Dorothy Shaver becomes one of only two women to sit on the Lord & Taylor board of directors after a series of rapid promotions.

The San Francisco earthquake destroys Bessie Harrison's store and abruptly halts her meteoric rise through its management ranks.

Elizabeth Hawes is caught sketching designs at a Parisian fashion show and returns to America to build an independent design career.

Geraldine Stutz leaves Glamour to join shoe company I. Miller at a $40,000 salary, becoming one of the highest-paid women in fashion.

Salvador Dalí causes a public scene and is arrested after Bonwit Teller removes his provocative window installations without his permission.

Dorothy Shaver uses her Lord & Taylor platform to deliver speeches against racist and totalitarian movements growing in post-war America.

Hortense Odlum leaves the Bonwit Teller board of directors permanently and begins publicly arguing that working women damage their marriages.

Bonwit Teller's iconic Fifth Avenue flagship is purchased by real estate developer Donald Trump, who demolishes it to construct Trump Tower.

Geraldine Stutz meets British art dealer David Gibbs, who quickly divorces his wife to marry Geraldine, and the couple become fixtures in New York's elite.

Henri Bendel buyer Jean Rosenberg launches a weekly open call for designers that discovers significant new talent and defines Bendel's edge over competitors.

Geraldine Stutz and David Gibbs divorce after twelve years of marriage, and Geraldine remains unmarried for the rest of her life.

Maxey Jarman is ousted from Genesco's leadership, triggering plans to sell Henri Bendel and prompting Geraldine to seek ownership of the store.

Geraldine Stutz dies after a brief battle with cancer, having never returned to Henri Bendel after selling her ownership shares.

Beneath the major milestones of three pioneering women lay a series of turning points that quietly determined their fates. Hortense Odlum's humiliating experience shopping on a tight budget planted the seed of her future retail philosophy, while her sister Elsie's abrupt decision to close a shared business sent Dorothy Shaver to Lord & Taylor. The collapse of a Parisian career propelled Elizabeth Hawes to New York, and a natural disaster halted Bessie Harrison's promising rise through department store management. In the post-war years, Dorothy used her presidential platform for political advocacy while Geraldine pursued romance alongside her professional ambitions, with mixed results. As the department store era wound down, Hortense publicly denounced her own legacy, Bonwit Teller was demolished by a real estate developer, and Geraldine was pushed out of the store she had built. These turning points reveal the human stories of ambition, sacrifice, and resilience behind the golden age of American fashion.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that shaped three pioneering women's lives.