Sartain Lanier

Sartain Lanier was born in 1909 in Winchester, Tennessee.[1] His father was John Hicks Lanier and his mother, Nettie Sartain.[2] He had two brothers, Hicks and Thomas, and a sister, Eleanor.[2] He grew up in Nashville, Tennessee from the age of 5.[1]

Lanier was educated at Hume Fogg High School.[2] He graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1931.[3][4]

Lanier and his brothers co-founded the Lanier Company in Nashville in 1934.[3] It was later renamed Lanier Business Products.[3] The firm initially sold the Ediphone, a phonograph cylinder made by Thomas A. Edison, Inc., and later machines used in offices.[2] By 1976, the company was criticized for incurring the 1973–75 recession as their products led to a lesser need for secretarial employees and thus higher unemployment.[5] However, Lanier retorted that businesses had become more profitable thanks to those products.[5] The company was acquired by the Harris Corporation in 1983, and by Ricoh in 2000, where it became a subsidiary known as Lanier Worldwide.[1]

In 1942, in the midst of World War II, Lanier and his brothers acquired 50% of the Oxford Manufacturing Company, a textile concern of uniforms for the United States Army headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.[3] Lanier served as its chairman and chief executive officer.[1] He expanded the business to men's and women's apparel, and renamed it Oxford Industries.[2] In 1958, the Lanier brothers acquired the Freezer Shirt Corporation of Gaffney, South Carolina.[6] In 1963, the Oxford Company was listed as a public company on the New York Stock Exchange, with an annual revenue of US$60 million, 6,000 employees, 20 factories, 10 warehouses, and facilities in New York City.[7] By 1968, the Gaffney subsidiary was known as the Carolina Apparel Co.[8] That same year, the company reported record sales and profits.[8] Also in 1968, after his brother Thomas died, both Sartain and his brother J. Hicks inherited his shares from Lanier Properties, the warehouse company for Oxford Industries; those shares were acquired by the company.[9] By 1971, Sartain predicted that men were unlikely to return to wearing "the grey flannel suit and the conservative tie", preferring to wear colors and special fabrics.[10]

Lanier served on the Boards of Directors of Standard Brands (now Nabisco), the Trust Company of Georgia (now SunTrust Banks), the Genuine Parts Company, and Southern Airways.[3]

Lanier established the Sartain Lanier Family Foundation, a philanthropic family foundation.[2] He served on the board of trust of his alma mater, Vanderbilt University, for thirty years.[2] He also endowed the Lanier Scholarships, three scholarships given to high school graduates from Atlanta to attend Vanderbilt University for free for the entire four years of their college careers.[2]

Lanier married Claudia Gwynn Whitson in 1934; their wedding took place at the Wright Chapel of the Scarritt College for Christian Workers.[11] They had three children, including J. Hicks Lanier.[2] Claudia died of cancer in 1972, and in 1976 Lanier married Elizabeth Moorman Tuller.[2]

Lanier died on November 30, 1994 at the Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.[3][4] He was 85.[3][4] His funeral was held at the Episcopal Cathedral of Saint Philip in Atlanta.[3][4]