Lillian Vernon Collection
name: label: Creator
content: Vernon, Lillian, 1927-2015
topic: label: Topic
content: American woman entrepreneur
label: Topic
content: Business -- History
label: Topic
content: Direct marketing
label: Topic
content: Mail-order business
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Collection donated by Fred P. Hochberg and David Hochberg, 2019.
creator: label: Creator
content: Vernon, Lillian, 1927-2015
setName: label: See more items in
content: Lillian Vernon Collection
abstract: label: Summary
content: Collection documents Lillian Vernon, entrepreneur who started a catalog business on her kitchen table.  Materials include video and audio cassettes, awards, certificates, clippings, and sales catalogs.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Lillian Vernon, born Lilli Menasche (1927-2015), immigrated with her family to the United States from Germany after escaping the Nazi regime of the 1930s. Vernon inherited her family's entrepreneurial spirit and in 1951 when pregnant with her first child, she searched for a way to stay home and yet augment the family budget. Using her combined wedding gifts, Vernon invested $2,000 in the business and placed her first advertisement in Seventeen for monogrammed accessories for teenagers.  She received an overwhelming response and her business was launched. In the early years, the size of the business was limited to Vernon and her kitchen table, where she sorted and filled orders. 

Vernon grew her enterprise into one of the nation's most successful mail-order catalogs and a major corporation. The Lillian Vernon Catalog, which the company launched in 1956, became an iconic shopping resource for American women. Produced monthly, the catalog was typically 120 pages and usually featured 750 items. In response to a catalog and shopping mall boom in the United States in the 1980s, the company produced a number of specialty catalogs in order to broaden its market, including ones targeted for children and homemakers.

In 1987, Vernon's company became the first business founded by a woman to be publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Responding to the increasingly important online market in the early 1990s, the Lillian Vernon Corporation opened a storefront on AOL in 1995 and followed with an online catalog and website. However, by the end of the 1990s, the company began to struggle to meet online needs, especially after the collapse of the dot-com bubble. Vernon sold the company to Zelnick Media in 2003, but retained the symbolic title of non-executive chairman.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 12 Cubic feet (37 boxes)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1974-2008
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.1495
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Audio cassettes
label: Type
content: Cd-roms
label: Type
content: Dvds
label: Type
content: Sales catalogs
label: Type
content: Videotapes
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: Collection is arranged in three series.


	
Series 1: Lillian Vernon Bound Catalogs, 1987-2007	

Series 2: Biographical Material, 1989-2004

Series 3: Audio Visual Materials, undated
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Collection processed by Patti Williams, archivist, 2022.  Select catalog covers digitized by Isaac Meth, intern, 2022. The audiovisual portion of the collection was digitized between 2022 and 2023.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Audio cassettes
label: Genre/Form
content: CD-ROMs
label: Genre/Form
content: DVDs
label: Genre/Form
content: Sales catalogs
label: Genre/Form
content: Videotapes
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This collection consists of 12 cubic feet of material relating to Lillian Vernon, entrepreneur, who started her catalog business at her kitchen table.  Materials include video and audio cassettes, awards, certificates, clippings, and sales catalogs, 1987-2008.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: Materials at the National Museum of American History

The Division of Work and Industry holds related objects: engravo-graph machine, engraving blocks, kitchen table, wood sign, purse, and belt. See accession 2019.0306.