“I have two great ambitions:  to build a business based upon quality and good taste, to be a part of the civic life of the community and to share the responsibility for helping those less fortunate than I am in payment for what the community is doing for me.”

 

Elizabeth Cecilia Quinlan was a founder of the Young Quinlan Company, and an innovator in the specialty retail and garment industry.  She became the sole owner of the company in 1911 and was its chief executive officer until her retirement in 1945.

 

Born in 1863, she was the daughter of Irish immigrants.  Her father was a laborer on the railroad and her mother was a domestic servant before giving birth to seven children, of which “Lizzie” was the 5th.  She left school after the 7th grade to find work to help support the family.  After several years of work in a shingle mill, she was hired by Goodfellow and Eastman Dry Goods emporium where she became their top salesperson.

 

In 1895, she and fellow salesperson, Fred Young, decided to strike out on their own and open a new kind of store.  It would carry only high end, fashionable accessories and clothing for women, all in one place for one stop shopping.  Up until that time, women had to visit separate shops to choose hats from a milliner, gloves from a glove merchant, etc.  Most major clothing items for women were designed and made by the women themselves or by dressmakers who numbered in the hundreds in Minneapolis at the turn of the twentieth century.  This involved shopping for yard goods, patterns, linings, crinolines, trimmings, and stays, and having preliminary fittings – a time consuming and often tedious business.

 

In 1897, as one of only 2 or 3 women buyers in the New York market – and the only one from “out west” -Quinlan agreed, as a test, to buy a “readymade” dress from manufacturer, Edward Mayer, to try out on her customers back in Minneapolis.  It sold out immediately. She rushed to New York to buy more and the ready-to-wear garment industry, as we know it today, was born.  In response to the demands of her well-heeled customers, who were clamoring for European designer clothing, Ms. Quinlan took another big risk and traveled to Paris to purchase an assortment of styles from some of its famous couture ateliers. Her customers again came through, the merchandise sold very well, and this became the first, by her count, of the more than 60 buying trips that she made to Europe – all in the days before transatlantic air travel became commonplace

 

The business, located in leased space at 5th and Nicollet, grew rapidly. In 1906, Fred Young became ill and was forced to give up any management duties.  In 1911, he died, and Quinlan bought out his stock in the company to become its sole owner.   But, in gratitude for his willingness to collaborate with her as a profit-sharing partner, which was an unusual role for a woman in those days, she kept “Young” in the company name for as long as she owned the business.

 

By 1919, Young Quinlan was outgrowing its space and Ms. Quinlan bought one fourth of the block at 9th and Nicollet in anticipation of building her own new, and much larger, store there. She hired prominent New York architect, Fred Ackerman, who mainly did residential work, to design a beautiful “home” for her merchandise. It opened in 1926, where it stands today, and included a new and important innovation, the first underground parking ramp in the country.

 

Her amazing success was noted nationally, and she was profiled in a March of Time newsreel as well as in the Saturday Evening Post and Fortune magazine which named her one of the foremost women business executives in the country.  In 1933, during the Great Depression, she was appointed by the Roosevelt Administration to serve on the Board of the National Recovery Act, the only woman asked to do so.

 

She continued to run the Young Quinlan Company, with the help of her nephew, William Lahiff, until her retirement in 1945.  He had been hired in the early days of the business, had risen to a senior management position, and had become a minority partner. Together, they agreed to sell the business upon her retirement, and several years after that, the building and property were sold.  Upon her death in 1947, proceeds from those sales made up the bulk of her estate, two-thirds of which she directed to be used to fund the Elizabeth C. Quinlan Foundation.

 

Throughout her life she was steadfast in her commitment to community service.  She was a member of a generation of Minneapolitans who were determined to develop great cultural institutions for the city.  She served as a director of what is now the Minnesota Orchestra, and was a generous donor to it, as well as to the Minneapolis Institute of Art.  Most of all, she was an enthusiastic advocate for great theater to be made available to Twin Citians.  She headed the Civic Theater Committee to encourage major Broadway shows to make Minneapolis one of the stops on their tours – even guaranteeing several productions with her personal funds.

 

While she was a generous donor to the arts, she was even more committed to helping her disadvantaged fellow citizens.  Over the years she donated nearly $600,000 (inflation adjusted), and significant amounts of volunteer time, to the Minneapolis Council of Social Agencies, a predecessor of the United Way, which gave her a special award in 1945.

 

She was a devout Catholic and gave significant amounts of money to Catholic organizations, especially the Basilica of St. Mary.  Her giving, however, reflected her broad-minded and inclusive views.  In 1921, for example, the Chinese famine relief fund, the Scandinavian Mission Relief Home and Associated Jewish Charities were recipients of contributions from her.

 

Today, the trustees of the foundation, who are all descendants of her nephew, William Lahiff, try to reflect those priorities in their funding decisions each year, though knowing that, as a great retailer, Elizabeth Quinlan would have been an enthusiastic advocate for updating those priorities, as changing times require.