SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN WOMEN'S HISTORY MUSEUM

Five Women to Know for American Business Women’s Day

Learn about Mae Reeves, Anna Bissell, Estée Lauder, Maggie Walker, and Sara Sunshine—five women from Smithsonian collections who ran businesses and made history.

A black-and-white photograph of seven women standing on a flight of stairs. Mae Reeves stands to the farthest right on the lowest step and wears a white hat and floral patterned handbag.
Mae Reeves stands on the farthest right in a group of unidentified women in 1950. Image courtesy of the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift from Mae Reeves and her children, Donna Limerick and William Mincey, Jr.

In 1986, a Congressional resolution and proclamation by President Ronald Reagan officially recognized September 22 as American Business Women’s Day. This date was chosen to celebrate the founding of the American Business Women’s Association on September 22, 1949. The association began as a way to provide structured opportunities for networking, career development, and workplace skills training to women who had entered the workforce during World War II. The annual holiday provides an opportunity to honor the legacy and contributions of the women working in America and the nearly 13 million women who own businesses.1 This year, learn about Mae Reeves, Anna Bissell, Estée Lauder, Maggie Walker, and Sarah Sunshine—five women from Smithsonian collections who ran businesses and made history.

Mae Reeves (1912–2016)

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A hat from Mae’s Millinery Shop. Image courtesy of the Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift from Mae Reeves and her children, Donna Limerick and William Mincey, Jr.

In 1941, Mae Reeves moved from Grant, Georgia to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as part of the Great Migration to pursue financial independence and economic opportunity. She secured a $500 loan in her own name from the Black-owned Citizens and Southern Bank and established Mae’s Millinery Shop at 1630 South Street.2 This made Reeves one of the first African American women to own a business in downtown Philadelphia. The quality and aesthetic appeal of Reeves’ hat designs brought in customers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, and Marian Anderson. Mae’s Millinery Shop became so successful that Reeves reestablished her store in the bustling 60th Street Corridor. In addition to being a fashion and business pioneer, Reeves was also a civil rights activist. She was a member of the NAACP and used her store as a polling place.

Anna Sutherland Bissell (1846–1934)

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“The Carpet Sweeper of Merit” advertisement from American Homes and Gardens in 1913. Image courtesy of Smithsonian Libraries and Archives.

At the age of 19, Anna Sutherland married Melville Bissell and became a joint partner in their crockery and china business. When Melville invented the carpet sweeper in 1876, Anna Bissell traveled from town to town selling it. She also organized assembling and delivering orders for the sweepers. After her husband died, Anna took over the company as the nation’s first female CEO. She introduced new guidelines on trademarks and patents and moved Bissell carpet sweepers into the international market. She also introduced progressive labor policies including workers’ compensation insurance and pension plans long before these practices were widespread. By 1899, she had created the largest organization of its kind in the world.

Estée Lauder (1908–2004)

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Cosmetic sample kit of Estée Lauder products. Image courtesy of the Division of Home and Community Life, National Museum of American History.

As a teenager, Estée Lauder learned how to make beauty creams from her chemist uncle and began selling them in hair salons. In 1946, Lauder and her husband formed the corporation that still bears her name today. They began by making only a handful of products using the kitchen of a former restaurant until Lauder had her first department store order from Saks Fifth Avenue. The order sold out in two days, and Estée Lauder Companies, Inc. was launched into success. Currently, Estée Lauder Companies, Inc. is the second largest cosmetics company in the world after L’Oreal.

Maggie Lena Walker (1864–1934)

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A silver medal honoring Maggie Lena Walker issued by the American Negro Commemorative Society.   Image courtesy of the Division of Work and Industry, National Museum of American History.

Maggie Lena Walker became the first African American woman to charter a bank in 1903. Originally beginning her career as a teacher, she was forced to resign when she married Armstead Walker in 1886 because married women were prohibited from teaching. Walker dove into community service through the Independent Order of Saint Luke (ISOL), an African American fraternal benefit society that provided aid to sick community members.3 Walker quickly climbed the ranks of the ISOL, and the organization grew in numbers. Walker had a vision to better her community by increasing access to employment, education, and financial independence. Through the ISOL, she founded St. Luke Penny Savings Bank and employed primarily Black women. The bank would later merge with two other banks in Richmond and become The Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, the longest-running, independent Black-owned bank.

Sara Sunshine (b. 1936)

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Sara Sunshine with advertising executives and members of the Spanish Advertising and Marketing Service. Image courtesy of the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

Sara Sunshine was a Cuban refugee and one of the few voices representing Latina women in 1960s New York advertising offices. Sunshine co-founded the first advertising agency in the United States that catered to a Latino audience, called the Spanish Marketing and Advertising Services (SAMS), where she was the head copywriter and art executive. Up until this point, marketing agencies had not targeted Latino audiences in a meaningful way, preferring instead to simply translate English ads into Spanish. Sunshine argued that Latino Americans were a unique and viable audience to tap in to and created ads that were designed for Latino audiences. A testament to her creative work, Sunshine went on to win the first Clio Award given for work in the new category of the “Hispanic Market” in 1987.

Notes:

  1. “Women’s Small Business Ownership and Entrepreneurship Report,” U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship, 2023.
  2. “Hats Off to Mae Reeves!” National Museum of African American History and Culture.
  3. Crystal Moten, “How Maggie Lena Walker Became the First Black Woman to Run a Bank in the Segregated South,” Smithsonian Magazine, 2021.
  4. CLIO Award Certificate, National Museum of American History

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Meredith Herndon is the writer and editor for the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum.