By Marshall Weiss, The Observer

Among the extinct department stores of Manhattan, a mystique surrounds the names of a few: Bonwit Teller, Lord & Taylor, Henri Bendel.

Bonwit Teller, established in 1895, went bankrupt in 2000. It closed that year.

Lord & Taylor filed for bankruptcy in 2020. When it closed all its stores in 2021, it was then the longest-surviving department store chain in the United States, at 195 years.

Henri Bendel sold women’s clothing and accessories from 1895 until 2019, when it closed all its stores and took down its website.

Their prestige came about from the tastes and tenacity of the women who ran those department stores in the mid-20th century: Hortense Odlum of Bonwit Teller, Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor, and Geraldine Stutz of Henri Bendel.

Julie Satow will share these three indomitable women’s overlooked stories when she talks about her New York Times Bestselling book, When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion, Dec. 8 at Wright Memorial Public Library in Oakwood.

It’s a program of the JCC Cultural Arts & Book Series.

Satow, a regular contributor to The New York Times, has found a niche writing about stylish gems of New York history.

Her first book, The Plaza: The Secret Life of America’s Most Famous Hotel, was an NPR Favorite Book of 2019.

In When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, Satow points out that for much of the 20th century, women were employed in department stores, but very few rose to management or executive positions.

“Department stores have long been overshadowed by the men who founded them,” she notes in the 2024 book’s introduction.

“But these establishments were truly female-centric worlds, where women were freed from many of the societal constraints they faced outside the store.”

In the last century, department stores flourished not only in major metropolitan cities, but in smaller cities such as Dayton. Several department stores here were founded and run by Jewish men.

One that was run by a Jewish woman for a time was Donenfeld’s.

Jacob A. Donenfeld, a native of Austria, worked his way up at Rike-Kumler’s for 13 years before he opened his own store for women in 1924 at 35-37 N. Main St.

When he died of a heart attack at age 50 in 1936, his wife, Sadie, ran the store. At the time, their sons, Ralph and Stanley, were still teenagers. Sadie was also an early president of Dayton’s Hadassah chapter.

After Ralph and Stanley returned from their service in World War II, they led Donenfeld’s, ultimately expanding to the suburbs, in the Dayton and Salem malls.

Women and the workforce were top of mind when Satow started on When Women Ran Fifth Avenue. It was the height of the Covid pandemic. The writer had two young children at home; childcare wasn’t available.

“While there is undoubtedly a mountain of obstacles women in the workforce must overcome,” she writes in the book, “I have more options than these pioneering women ever did, and I am optimistic that my daughter will have even more choices than I’ve had.”

The JCC Cultural Arts & Book Series in partnership with Wright Memorial Public Library and Hadassah presents author Julie Satow, 2 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 8 at the library, 1776 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. Register for the free program here.

To read the complete December 2024 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.