Lillian Greneker

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

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, designer

Early life

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

Design and mannequin business

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

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

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
  1. "Lidman". Chicago Tribune. January 11, 1955. p. 22. Retrieved October 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. "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. 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. "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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