Ellen Louise Demorest

Ellen Louise Demorest (née Curtis, November 15, 1824 – August 10, 1898) was an American businesswoman, fashion arbiter and milliner, widely credited for inventing mass-produced tissue-paper dressmaking patterns.

With her husband, William Jennings Demorest, she established a company to sell the patterns, which were adaptations of the latest French fashions, and a magazine to promote them in 1860.

Ellen was inspired by the idea to create tissue paper patterns of fashionable garments for the home sewer.

"[2] The fashions worn by Empress Eugenie were of particular interest to the readers of Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly Magazine and Mme.

[4] Journalist and women's rights advocate Jane Cunningham Croly edited Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly Magazine from 1860 to 1887.

The column claimed to take "note of every woman rancher, banker, dentist or businesswoman... who came to light in a distinctive way in any part of the country.

Along with Jane Cunningham Croly, Ellen was a founding member of Sorosis, the first professional women's club in the United States.

Snyder, a renowned American architect who served as Superintendent of School Buildings for the New York City Board of Education from 1891 to 1923.