Friday 20 January 2012
Pamper House
By David Pitt, Friday 20 January 2012 - 10:30 :: Mixed
By almost any measure my mother was a tremendous American success story in the early years. A divorced single woman with 4 children in tow would almost universally have a difficult road back in the 50’s and 60’s. She surmounted that and eventually became a millionaire in real estate in California. Her intelligence, business acumen and beauty were formidable and she overcame virtually any obstacle in her way. All of that is a long and complicated story so here I want to only focus on her very first business venture: Pamper House. “This is the story of a French girl with both beauty and brains who came to America to seek her fortune.”* My mother was a fairly well know Parisian model for the House of Jacques Fath who was one of the three preeminent pillars of postwar Parisian haute couture. With influential backing she did not think small – her address was 600 Fifth Ave, NY 20, NY – that’s Rockefeller Center.
Not too many businesses start out with a glowing 3 page spread in Life Magazine but somehow PAMPER HOUSE managed the feat on July 14, 1952. It wasn’t an ad – it was the feature article in their ‘Modern Living’ section of that edition. The subtitle read: WOMEN HELP SELVES TO BEAUTY AT QUARTER ADMISSION, DIME AN ITEM. Chock full of a dozen photos illustrating ‘beauty served cafeteria style’ the article described a brand new unique sort of club with a one dollar a year membership fee. Everything else was a la carte with a quarter for admission and a nickel or a dime or two for everything else. Working women or suburban housewives could rest and relax or grab ‘showers, shampoos, sets or scents’. Get ready for a date, have a snack or whatever. Except for the reception room no men were allowed in any part of Pamper House during business hours
Pamper House was a rather audacious venture for a relatively new immigrant. When asked by Dorothy Roe*, Associated Press Women’s Editor, how she would cover her costs Tanya Pitt replied “I have been reading about Mr. Woolworth. He founded a business on nickels and dimes – and I understand he did very well”. And so did she – before they even opened they had 2,000 members and almost immediate success. There were more than 3,000 women a week coming in with regularity and plunking down their quarters and nickels and dimes. This Parisian model had understood the temper of the times and the need for women to finally have a space of their own. She even foreshadowed the automat and vending machines.
Very quickly plans for expansion to Manhattan, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington DC were hatched. Soon my mother bundled my sisters and I along with my monkey Ike into a trailer and we were off on a cross country tour to promote Pamper House. In Chicago we even got invited on to the television show Welcome Travelers. In 1953 that was a pretty big deal for us kids.
January 12, 2012 / Pamper House / FHP, BK 2, #6 / FAM Pg 36 © 2012 / CIP # 874, Jan 20, 2012 / KD July 14, 1952 / FHPM MXD / F 192F, YP 79/10B
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