Who or what the heck is 'Elinor Gay'?

cactusandcattails

cactusandcattails

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Who or what the heck is \'Elinor Gay\'?

I have had a few dresses with this label. Mine have been 40s and always with nice detail. One with beaded 'love' birds and this one with big embroidered pockets. I see this label into at least the 60s. I just wonder, is Elinor Gay an actual person like 'Nelly Don', or a company like 'Suzy Perette'?

Here are some quick shots of a dress with jacket by the designer in question. I think this would be early 40s. While trying to do research I came up with a few examples but no info on the label. Does anyone have anything they could share? Lizzie?

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Because of the age of the dress I would be willing to bet that it is a line from one of those middle America companies that produced under names like Vicky Vaughn, Dorothy Dodd etc. that was not a real woman. Even Nelly Don wasn't her real name. There isn't that same use of designer's names before the war or even during the war other than for designer garments like Adrian. I am not sure when Clare Potter started using her name. Claire McCardell only started in 1941ish and she was one of the first. Its not until the 1950s that you begin to see designer names appear on American dresses and even then its for higher end stuff. Its not really common until the 1970s to have the designer's name on most clothing.
 
Sort of like Betty Crocker?

I've had some great looking Elinor Gay's too. I just wish Middle American clothing was so nice now!
 
Jonathan I suspect you have it exactly right.

I agree Maggie and wish the same. If you want to buy a nice, well made dress today, you have to fork over some serious bucks!

Its nice to know that at least one dress with this label has been recognized in a collection. Thanks for the link Linda!
 
I kept thinking the same Amanda, and when I googled Elinor Gay, I was directed to many Enola Gay pages. :puzzled:
 
This is really long after the original thread, but I was trying to find out more about a book written by an Elinor Gay in 1885 called "Skilful Susy". It was a book about various types of embroidered mats, screens, drapes, chairs, pillows, etc. Elinor Gay was, however, a pseudonym for Mary Gay Humphreys and E.W. Boardman. The link is here http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t1ng54c5p;view=1up;seq=7. I can't find out anything more about the history of the name, but I suspect a connection.
 
Disordered said:
This is really long after the original thread, but I was trying to find out more about a book written by an Elinor Gay in 1885 called "Skilful Susy". It was a book about various types of embroidered mats, screens, drapes, chairs, pillows, etc. Elinor Gay was, however, a pseudonym for Mary Gay Humphreys and E.W. Boardman. I can't find out anything more about the history of the name, but I suspect a connection.
Click to expand...

Just an update on the above: Mary Gay Humphreys (aka Elinor Gay) was a well-known writer and journalist in New York City, writing mostly under her own name, from about 1880 to 1915.

One of her more interesting pieces was Women Bachelors in New York, written for the November 1896 issue of Scribner’s Magazine (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015015393302?urlappend=;seq=648), which described the relatively new phenomena of unmarried, well-educated professional women living and working in big cities like New York.

A quote: “In earning money it was only the first step that cost. A mother of the last generation once said with some embarrassment to a daughter of this, “My dear, I never have been able to understand how you could accept money from anyone but your father.” That the money was earned counted for nothing in the mother's mind. This helps to measure the distance between the old woman and the new. To the new, money earned is money owned, in a sense that gives a new meaning to life. For however the recognition may fail to satisfy our ideals, the ability to earn money is the solvent of many of the most important questions of life; its contribution to the character, moreover, must now be regarded along with patience, suffering, and other more peculiar forms of feminine discipline. To the womanly delight of spending money is added the realization of independence and power.”
 
I know this was a long time ago but in case anyone is still curious, we now have an entry in our label resource on Elinor Gay. Even though she was a real person (Elinor Gay Greenberg), the daughter of the company’s president and owner Harry Greenberg, while researching the label, I did not find any indication that she was involved in the design. The signature on the label is hers though.

Here is the full bio
https://vintagefashionguild.org/label-resource/gay-elinor/
 
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