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Lillian Greneker

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Lillian Greneker
A while woman, smiling.
Lillian Greneker, from a 1937 newspaper
Born
Lillian Louise Lidman

August 27, 1895
Savannah, Georgia, US
DiedJanuary 28, 1990
Englewood, New Jersey, US
Occupation(s)businesswoman, inventor, mannequin designer

Lillian Greneker (August 27, 1895 – January 28, 1990) was an American businesswoman, inventor, and mannequin designer.

Early life

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Lillian Louise Lidman was born in Savannah, Georgia, the daughter of William F. Lidman and Louise Anderson Lidman.[1] Her parents were immigrants from Sweden. The Lidman family moved to Chicago when Lillian was young. She attended a Swedenborgian boarding school in Ohio.[2]

Career

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Design and mannequin business

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As a young woman, Lillian Lidman was a musical performer on the stage, touring with a stock company out of Chicago.[3] She also designed costumes for theatre.[4][5] After she married, she lived in the New York area, and designed and built several houses in Mount Kisco, New York.[6] After her husband asked her to create lightweight poseable mannequins for a theatre lobby display, she patented her designs,[7][8][9] including one with colleague Cora Scovil,[10] and formed the Greneker Corporation with Edgar Rosenthal in 1937, to produce mannequins.[11][12] She built mannequins with rubber waists, to allow cinching into a "wasp" silhouette as well as more natural positioning. "Many claimes to 'firsts' in mannequin art are credited to Mrs. Greneker," explained a 1939 newspaper account.[13]

She talked about her work with host Adelaide Hawley on an early television program, "The Lady Means Business", in 1946.[14] In 1951 she left the Greneker Corporation[15] and founded Lillian Greneker Inc., adding other display items and theatrical props to her product line.[16] Greneker's company moved to Los Angeles after World War II.[17]

Other inventions, art and film

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Greneker invented the Fingertip, a thimble with various gadget attachments, in the 1930s.[18][19] When her mannequin factory in Pleasantville, New York, was converted for defense use during World War II, she invented a disposable self-sealing gas tank for planes and submarines.[20][21][22] In 1978, she received one more patent, an update to her thimble concept.[23]

Lillian Greneker exhibited her sculptures in New York in the 1950s.[24] She worked on a new design for theatrical sets in the 1950s, to make lightweight papier-mâché dimensional backdrops.[25] In 1970 she was credited as production designer on a horror film, Guru, the Mad Monk.[26]

Personal life and legacy

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Lillian Lidman married Claude Pritchard Greneker, a theatre publicist, in 1921. She was widowed in 1949,[27] and she died in 1990, aged 94 years, at an actors' nursing home in New Jersey.[6][28] Her papers are at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard, and include plays and poems she wrote, photographs, and clippings.[2]

Her house in Mount Kisco is now known as the Greneker Retreat, and the gardens are open once a year for tours.[29][30] The Greneker mannequin company remains in operation, based in Los Angeles, though the manufacturing now occurs in China.[17][31] In 2018, a Greneker mannequin nicknamed "Starman" was seated behind the wheel of an Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster and launched into space by SpaceX.[32]

References

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  1. ^ "Lidman". Chicago Tribune. January 11, 1955. p. 22. Retrieved October 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ a b "Collection: Papers of Lillian Louise Lidman Greneker, 1890-1990". HOLLIS for Archival Discovery. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  3. ^ York, Allen (May 10, 1918). "The Workshop Players". The Music News. 10: 14.
  4. ^ Commission, Illinois Centennial (1920). The Centennial of the State of Illinois: Report of the Centennial Commission. Illinois State Journal Company, State Printers. p. 444.
  5. ^ Rice, Wallace. The masque of Illinois / presented by the Illinois Centennial commission, October fourth and fifth, nineteen hundred and eighteen, eight-fifteen P.M., Coliseum, Illinois State Fair grounds, Springfield. State Library of Pennsylvania. Jeffersons Print. Co. pp. 17.
  6. ^ a b Cook, Joan (February 6, 1990). "L. L. Greneker, 95; Made Mannequins With Movable Parts". The New York Times. p. D25. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
  7. ^ Lillian L. Greneker, "Display Form" (1939), US Patent application; US27765739A patent granted 1940.
  8. ^ Lillian L. Greneker, "Display Structure" (1938), US Patent application; US2165475A patent granted 1939.
  9. ^ Lillian L. Greneker, "Display Head" (1939), US Patent application. US2165476A patent granted 1939.
  10. ^ Cora L Scovil and Lillian L Greneker, "Ornamental object and method of making the same" (1936), US Patent application; US2081071A patent granted 1937.
  11. ^ Strege, Gayle (2017-07-05). "The Store Mannequin: An Evolving Ideal of Beauty". In Iarocci, Louisa (ed.). Visual Merchandising: The Image of Selling. Routledge. ISBN 9781351537452.
  12. ^ Harris, Jo Ann (2019-03-04). "The Evolution of The Mannequin". Medium. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  13. ^ Taylor, Matilda (September 19, 1939). "Window Ladies Adopt Wasp Waists". Women's Wear Daily. p. II-28 – via ProQuest.
  14. ^ "Lillian Greneker on Video Show Tomorrow". Women's Wear Daily. May 14, 1946. p. 94 – via ProQuest.
  15. ^ "Mrs. Greneker Sells Interests". Women's Wear Daily. March 16, 1951. p. 2 – via ProQuest.
  16. ^ "Lillian Greneker Heads New Firm". Women's Wear Daily. May 1, 1951. p. 61 – via ProQuest.
  17. ^ a b "Company Profile: Greneker (Los Angeles, CA; mannequins)". Company Week. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  18. ^ "Small Utility Tools Are Attached To Finger Tips". Modern Mechanix. July 1937. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  19. ^ "Chores Made Easy by Fingertip Tools". The New York Times. March 9, 1937. p. 25 – via ProQuest.
  20. ^ Casey, Susan (1997). Women Invent!: Two Centuries of Discoveries That Have Shaped Our World. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 9781569765111.
  21. ^ Lillian L. Greneker, "Destructible Form" (1943), US Patent application; US2343292A patent granted 1944.
  22. ^ Wolfinger, Florence (October 14, 1965). "The Versatile Mrs. Greneker; Her Rope Trick was a World War II Secret". Patent Trader. p. 32. Retrieved October 2, 2019 – via NYS Historic Newspapers.
  23. ^ Lillian L. Greneker, "Finger Fit Implement" (1978), US Patent application; US4177698A patent granted 1979.
  24. ^ "Art Show to Aid Two U. N. Groups". The New York Times. June 3, 1956. p. 109 – via ProQuest.
  25. ^ Taylor, Bertram (August 4, 1955). "Papier Mache Taking Place of Stagehands". Chappaqua Sun. p. 2. Retrieved October 2, 2019 – via NYS Historic Newspapers.
  26. ^ "Guru, the Mad Monk (1970)". AFI Catalog. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  27. ^ "C. P. Greneker Dies; Shuberts' Aide, 68". The New York Times. April 8, 1949. p. 25 – via ProQuest.
  28. ^ "Deaths Elsewhere". Detroit Free Press. February 8, 1990. p. 18. Retrieved October 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  29. ^ "The Greneker Retreat : Garden Directory". The Garden Conservancy. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  30. ^ "Tour Private Gardens During the Westchester County Open Days". ABCNY Moms. 2019-06-27. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  31. ^ Barr, Elizabeth (October 2018). "Where are the Plus-Sized Mannequins? Greneker is Here to Help!". The Curvy Fashionista. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
  32. ^ "Greneker mannequin takes flight with SpaceX". Shop! Insights Center. 2018-02-14. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
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