Women’s History Month - Elizabeth C. Quinlan
Elizabeth C. Quinlan (1863-1947) and her business partner, Fred D. Young, opened the first women’s ready-to-wear clothing shop in Minneapolis in 1894. Prior to the shop’s opening, most Minneapolis women either sewed their clothing at home or hired a dressmaker. The store began as the Fred D. Young Company at 513 Nicollet Mall in the back of the Vrooman Glove Shop.
By 1899, the name was changed to Young-Quinlan and the business occupied the entire store. In 1905, the store expanded again and was hailed by the Minneapolis Journal (4/1/1905) as a “signpost whereon one may read the leap Minneapolis has made from provincialism to cosmopolitanism in the last ten years.”
When Fred Young died in 1911, Elizabeth Quinlan purchased his share of stock and became the sole owner. Within a decade, Young-Quinlan was a multimillion dollar business. In 1926 at age 63, Quinlan built the elegant Young-Quinlan store at 901 Nicollet Mall. The store’s design influenced many other retailers including Neiman Marcus. Young-Quinlan’s merchandise was beautiful and distinctive, with items ranging from 25-cent handkerchiefs to $125 “glorious shawls of metal cloth in evening shades.”
Named by Fortune magazine as one of the nations’ top businesswomen in the 1930s, Quinlan ran the store until 1945, when the business was sold. She died in 1947 at the age of 84 and left her assets to her private foundation.