A Local Department also of General Interest 



Regarding a Sound Beach Business Woman 



American Business Women. 



MAY MAXTON. 

 [FROM THE ELECTRALOGUP:, NEW YORK.] 



R E A T I N G 



dresses for dolls 

 is doubtless a de- 

 lightful occupa- 

 tion for tiny 

 chubby - faced 

 and curly-haired 

 girls. Indeed, 



they seem to be 

 able to get a 

 greater measure of 

 enjoyment out of 

 it than any other childish occupation. 

 But, when these little girls begin to 

 grow, somehow the zest of this partic- 

 ular pastime is lost and soon the mak- 

 ing of dolls' clothes is abandoned en- 

 tirely. 



But to one girl in particular, a viva- 

 cious Scotch lassie, the pleasure of this 

 occupation was never lost. Indeed her 

 joy in designing and making frocks for 

 her dolls survived long after she had 

 passed the recognized "doll age" and 

 became a rather large girl. But con- 

 ventions or no conventions, she still 

 found pleasure in designing diminutive 

 wardrobes, and when she had outfitted 

 her dolls to a degree where further ad- 

 ditions would be sheer extravagance 

 (and not to be countenanced by her 

 Scotch parents) she looked about her 

 for the dolls of other and much smaller 

 girls which needed attention. 



And strange as it may seem, this 

 propensity for designing clothes for 

 dolls clung to her so long that finally 

 she determined to put it to a very prac- 

 tical use. Instead of dolls she chose 

 human beings, little girls and boys and 

 grown women, and forthwith she pro- 

 ceeded to design clothes for them, un- 

 til now she is designing clothes for the 

 women folk of almost the entire nation, 

 for there is little doubt that May Man- 

 ton's pattern-making is today a nation- 

 al institution of unbelievable size. 



It is true that Miss Manton's genius 

 for making patterns developed from 

 her youthful desires to make her dolls 

 look' pretty — or perhaps that is a mis- 

 statement.' Perhaps her genius for 



making i)atterns and designing dresses 

 was given expression as early as the 

 day when her chief desire was to make 

 dolls' clothes; l)ut whichever is the 

 case, the result of thirty years of prac- 

 tical pattern-designing, as evidenced' 

 today in Miss Manton's tremendous 

 business, attests to both her skill and. 

 what is more important, her ability as 

 a business woman. 



Miss Manton is one of a number of 

 women of national renown who have 

 been extremely successful in business^ 

 Her wits and her foresight have re- 

 sulted in the establishment of an in- 

 stitution capable of keeping the wheels 

 of a huge factory humming day and 

 night. She has her representatives in 

 nearly every city of the United States 

 and in many cities of foreign countries, 

 and she has gained through her busi- 

 ness a countrywide friendship and re- 

 spect. 



Just where Miss Manton's design- 

 ing of clothes passed from pleasure in- 

 to business is hard to say. Of course, 

 through it all the pleasure of the oc- 

 cupation has not been missing, because, 

 even today, after thirty years of this 

 form of work. Miss Manton visits her 

 designing-rooms in Sixth Avenue, New 

 York, every day, and all the work done 

 by the staff of a score or more artists 

 is accomplished under her immediate 

 supervision, or at least at her direction. 



The task of making dolls' clothes 

 when she was a little girl was, of 

 course, purely one of pleasure. But as 

 she grew older and really began to for- 

 sake her own dolls she found many 

 others to occupy her attention, the doll 

 families of her little friends. Later she 

 married, and then she had another fam- 

 ilv of dolls of her own to design for, 

 onlv these dolls were of a much more 

 active type than the pink and white 

 Dresden ones she had dressed in her 

 early day. At the age of nineteen, 

 married, and the mother of a family, 

 she came to this country. 



But still, with all the duties of a wife 

 and a mother, she found time to design 

 frocks, gowns, dresses, skirts, waists, 

 and a host of other things, for herself, 

 her children and her friends. Indeed, 

 her skill in this line was so marked 



