When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion

By 1932, the Odlum family had grown, and Hortense took a great deal of personal satisfaction from her role as a dutiful wife and mother. She told her sister Anne that she could not imagine leaving her home in order to work. Hortense’s distaste at the idea of a professional career reflected a popular backlash in her time against women in the workplace. As the Great Depression escalated, many argued that women should surrender their jobs to out-of-work men. The Federal Economy Act of 1932 dictated that federal agencies reducing their staff should fire married female employees first, arguing that they had husbands to support them.

Hortense felt she had no need to work. Since coming to New York, Floyd had transitioned from law to finance, and his firm was one of the few that managed to escape the financial crash of 1929. This financial privilege enabled Floyd to buy flailing companies like the department store Bonwit Teller and sell or revitalize them. Unfamiliar with department stores, he turned to Hortense for help. Satow argues that Floyd may have also hoped the store would distract Hortense from his ongoing affair with a Sak’s Fifth Avenue manicurist (and future aviator) Jackie Cochran.