Hortense Odlum
Hortense McQuarrie Odlum (July 1881 - January 12, 1970) was the first woman president of Bonwit Teller Department Store in New York City and the wife of financier Floyd Odlum.
Born in St. George, Utah, Hortense McQuarrie married Floyd Odlum when he was a law clerk. They moved to New York City when he accepted a position with a New York law firm in 1916. Mr. Odlum became president of Atlas Corporation, which took over Bonwit Teller in 1934. Mr. Odlum appointed his wife as president. She always maintained:
- "I was forced to take the job."
The store was confronted with enormous financial problems bordering on bankruptcy. However, within her first two years, the volume of business doubled, and during the third it trebled. She made major rearrangements of boutiques and salons, introduced a bright, cheerful decor and focused on customer relations. She once said:
- "I worked like a Trojan. But I never intended to stay. I'm out now and the whole thing leaves me cold."
Divorced from Odlum in 1935, she next married Dr. Porfirio Dominici, but that marriage was annulled in 1938.
After six years as Bonwit's president she retired in 1940, but served as chairman from 1940-1944. She said "dollars and cents will never mean much to me except as evidence of customer approval." She also stressed in her words: "high class, but not high hat." When asked about her business experience: "I got mine in the hardest of schools. For nearly 12 years, I ...was just a customer." After retirement she proclaimed, "I want to go back and be what I really am - just the typical customer who has found a store she loves to shop in."
Her sister's son was the actor Robert Hudson Walker. She offered to finance his studies at the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. He stayed in her home during his first year there.
Read more about Hortense Odlum: Publications
Famous quotes by hortense odlum:
“The home is a woman’s natural background.... From the beginning I tried to have the policy of the store reflect as nearly as it was possible in the commercial world, those standards of comfort and grace which are apparent in a lovely home.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“A completely indifferent attitude toward clothes in women seems to me to be an admission of inferiority, of perverseness, or of a lack of realization of her place in the world as a woman. Or—what is even more hopeless and pathetic—it’s an admission that she has given up, that she is beaten, and refuses longer to stand up to the world.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“This is the great truth life has to teach us ... that gratification of our individual desires and expression of our personal preferences without consideration for their effect upon others brings in the end nothing but ruin and devastation.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“One of the greatest satisfactions one can ever have, comes from the knowledge that he can do some one thing superlatively well.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)