The Maybelline Co and Chicago's Edgewater Beach Hotel's 100 year hsitory

The first section of the Edgewater Beach Hotel, was built in 1916.. An adjacent tower building was added in 1924. The Edgewater Beach Apartments were completed as part of the hotel resort complex in 1928.

The Edgewater Beach Hotel was a lavish, popular resort offering every amenity and, in its heyday, attracting the biggest stars – Babe Ruth, Nat King Cole, Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis –And, Maybelline founder, Tom Lyle Williams. 

1917, in his new Paige Detroit, Tom Lyle Williams with his sister Mabel and their father T.J. Williams parked in front of the original Maybelline Building

1917 4848 N. Sheridan the Williams family taking a family picture.(Preston in Navy uniform, Maybelline's namesake, Mabel, Maybelline founder, Tom Lyle, Tom Lyle Jr, and his mother Bennie, Frances and her sister.

 

An email from Marsha Holland

Dear Sharrie,

Thank you for getting me the book so quickly.  I have been reading it with pleasure ever since it arrived.  You have done a good job of bringing a company history to life.  I have also enjoyed using the book to follow your family’s movements around Chicago neighborhoods and seeing how their lives are intertwined with the development of Edgewater. 

Your very comprehensive website is what first drew me into the Maybelline story.  The Edgewater Historical Society is in the process of putting together a museum exhibit as part of the celebration of the 100^th anniversary of the opening of the Edgewater Beach Hotel. 

Maybelline Building with Executives and employees, 1932

Dear Sharri,

I believe that Tom Lyle must have moved into the Edgewater Beach Apartments when they were completed and available for rental in 1928-1929 (he was living there at the time of the 1930 census).  Before that the extended Williams family lived at 4848 N. Sheridan in a three-story building now replaced by a modern apartment block.  The 4848 address was about one third mile south of the Edgewater Beach Hotel, which opened in 1916.   The Edgewater Apartments, still standing unlike the hotel, are at the southeast corner of Bryn Mawr and Sheridan and were at the very north end of the large Edgewater Beach site, which stretched from Berwyn on the south to Bryn Mawr on the north.  It would have been a short trip up Ridge Avenue to the Maybelline building at Ridge and Clark. 

Hi Sharrie
The photos of the car look like they are taken near where they lived on 4053 South Prairie Avenue – not that I recognize any landmarks, but the neighborhood looks right for that location.  And the woman clothes and Preston’s naval uniform make it seem like the data of that photo is 1917-1918.  By 1920 they had moved to 4502 Grand Boulevard (now M L King Drive), which was about five blocks south and east, where the buildings were larger and the street had a wide grassy center median.

Maybelline Cousins, 1934

The Maybelline Company opened its doors in 1915... creating a fascinating era in America's History

1943 - Executive Secretary to Noel and Tom Lyle Williams...

Dorothy Molander, stands in front of the Maybelline Company's

famous Maybelline logo on the double doors leading into the Maybelline building.  The Maybelline building was two stories with a basement and three apartments for family members who just got married and were getting on their feet.  The packaging and distribution center was also located in the basement.  The first floor held offices for various secretaries and other workers and the walls were filled with pictures of movie stars who modeled for Maybelline in the pages of world wind magazines.  The second floor contained the executive offices for Noel, Tom Lyle, Tom Jr and Rags Ragland.  The Maybelline Building was located at 5900 Ridge Ave, at Ridge and Clark, in the heart of down town Chicago where much of The Maybelline Story takes place during the gangster ridden era of prohibition.

Outside the Maybelline Building 1934.

When Maybelline was sold, each employee was given $1,000 for each year they worked at Maybelline. Even those who hadn't been there a full year got $1,000. Uncle Lyle's secretary Dorothy (aka Ducky) ended up with something like $35,000 as did another secretary called Jimmie. Jimmie called Mable to ask her to relay to TL how grateful was that she could retire after she got her $30,000 check. At the time my parents had a bookstore and a former employee came in and told them he was bowled over to receive $8,000. 

Tom Lyle, Jr. inherited his father's shyness. Mable's daughter Shirley worked summers at Maybelline and she said every morning TL Jr. walked briskly to his private office, said a brief hello to everyone and no one saw him again until the end of the day. On the other hand, Noel kept up with all the employees' and their families. The women who worked there loved him dearly and called him Unky.

When Tom Lyle died, his niece Shirley got a phone call from TL, Jr.'s lawyer.  He said Tom Lyle Jr. was too shy to go downtown to meet with the executor and lawyers and asked Shirley to do it. She went downtown to explain all the family members and their relationships to the family. Good thing she had and still has an excellent memory.  (Memories from Mable's daughters, Shirley and Joyce, and her granddaughters, Donna and Linda, who still live in Chicago.

Tom Lyle Williams at his home in Bel Air, after the sale of his Maybelline Company in 1968

 

TL left a big portion of his estate to the Salvation Army. For many years he rented them space in the Maybelline building for $1 annually.

Be sure to check out my new website, Sharrie Williams Author at sharriewilliamsauthor.com

50 years of Maybelline-Magic took place in a simple nondescript building in Chicago

2. THE VISIBLE MAYBELLINE COMPANY

By Harris A. Niel Jr.

The beige brick building that housed the Maybelline Company in the 1960s was handsome, but nothing unusual. It took on the shape of an arrowhead pointing northward, between two major Chicago streets, Clark and Ridge. The rear, or base, of the arrowhead was bound by a couple of alleyways, forming an irregular base line

.

Entering at the company entrance at 5900 North Ridge Avenue, there was a main-floor foyer with a terrazzo floor and paneled walls. A semi-circular stair with curved brass rail rose out of sight to a second-floor office and reception area. Behind the receptionist window was a general office area where about a dozen people worked. Opposite the receptionist was a door leading to a group of four executive offices. That was it.

Back to the lower-level foyer, another door led to the main-floor operating areas. First, the Traffic and Shipping Departments were in adjoining spaces, convenient to a “dumb-waiter” device that dropped orders from the general office above to the lower area. Further into the plant, the “Assembly Room” came along, where maybe 50 ladies at individual work desks assembled thousands of packages of Maybelline products by hand daily. The room was set up with a supervisor’s desk in front, with assemblers in rows across the room, similar to a school classroom or study hall. Hazel Peterson, the supervisor, stopped any chit-chat if it got anywhere near disruptive.

An arrowhead pointing North

In addition to the Assembly Room, machine packaging was beginning to emerge. There were two smaller rooms, former retail store spaces, that were set up to produce this new packaging. One room packaged the medium-sized cake and cream mascaras and pencils onto gold cards, putting them first into blisters or “bubbles,” then stapling them to the card.

The second store-front room contained a machine that sealed products in blisters to cards by a dielectric sealing process. Several newer products went to market from this room, including the “Brush ‘N Comb,” automatic self-sharpening pencil and refill, and the brand new liquid “Magic Mascara” and refill. The latter was proving to be a smash hit in the marketplace, and we were still running behind to keep pace with demand when I started.

To the rear of these operating areas, there was a small warehouse and staging area for materials in and out of the shipping and assembly operations, and the sole truck dock. This dock was the connecting point for all in-and-out movement, all of it by truck.

Moving into the building from the dock, a freight elevator led to the basement warehouse and storage area. Most of the basement was Maybelline territory, except for the building utilities and storage cubicles for the apartment tenants. To call this space a “warehouse” gives the wrong picture, because it was a low-ceiling basement throughout. This limited storage on pallets to about six-foot height. Even at that, the space was randomly cut into smaller spaces by walls that may have made sense in some earlier time, but no longer did.

And that was the Maybelline “footprint,” part of three levels of the building. Also, there was a line of active retail store space along the Clark Street frontage. Starting with the “arrowhead,” a Rexall drug store occupied the point of the building, wrapping around to the Ridge Avenue frontage. Also, in no order, there was a barber shop, a short-order restaurant, an ice cream store, a hardware store and finally a “currency exchange,” a sort of check-cashing service.

Elsewhere, there were several dozen apartments on the upper two floors of the building. Many of the residents were also Maybelline employees, so they only had to go downstairs to go to work!

Over the years leading up to the merger with Plough in 1967, Maybelline edged into more of both the retail and residential space in the building as growth dictated. Finally, there were no retail spaces, Maybelline had moved into the whole main level of the building. In addition, Maybelline had expanded the office space to create a new Advertising Department, and expanded the Sales Department to provide offices for two Assistant Sales Managers. In the final years it also expanded to include the Computer Department, an IBM main frame computer with input punch-card equipment and a staff of three.

As Magic Mascara came along early in this period, the company hired a cosmetic chemist named Julius Wagman to formulate and refine the new product, with the plan to set up manufacturing and filling facilities on site. In fact, Julius did exactly that, with a specialized facility carved out of one of the old retail store spaces. That is, until the City of Chicago fire inspector paid a visit one day. They determined that, while the liquid product was harmless in a small package, it was volatile and taboo in manufacturing and storage quantities. 

Magic Mascara

We were operating against city code in that location. That was the end of that, and immediately Julius and John had to line up an outside source to supply us on a “private label” basis. This was a setback, but it only put Magic Mascara into the same orbit as every other Maybelline formulated product: An outside source would supply us, leaving Maybelline as a packager and distributor of its own products, but not a manufacturer. 

Harris A. Neil Jr. with a friend, in Maui

This little exercise has been both a joy and a challenge, but in any event it wouldn't couldn't--have happened without your book as a compass. The Maybelline book gave me a perspective that I’d lived without for all these 50-plus years, and that helped me immensely as I gathered both the thoughts and the materials that sit ready to head your way. Thanks, your book is the unseen hand guiding mine in whatever you see written here.

Maybelline's Chicago Headquarters 1915 -1968

Maybelline Building in 1934 withe it's executives, family and employees.  Don't you love the Maybelline truck?

Executive Secretary, Dorothy Molander standing at the Maybelline Building entrance in the 1940's.

Maybelline at 5900 N Ridge Ave, Chicago, IL 60660

This is the main entrance of the (old) Maybelline Building on Ridge Avenue in Chicago.  the script "M" cast into the concrete above the entrance--standing, of course, for Maybelline. 

The four sets of windows on the second floor were the four offices on "Executive Row." They now have curtains, so they've probably been converted to apartments. The glass brick wall runs along the production area as it existed in the '60s. 

The building to the left is a nursing home, built since the Maybelline days. 

Here's a view along the N. Clark Street line of the Maybelline Building. It's all one big store now, but those little entries were each smaller stores when Maybelline was there.

Review.....I have read The Maybelline Story book. I found this is a remarkable story! I cannot keep my eyes off of it! Your Great Uncle Tom Lyle Williams is a true icon of Maybelline! Thank you again!

Stephanie Lee

Thank you to Harris A Neil Jr. for sending me the recent pictures of the Maybelline Building.  Harris worked for the Maybelline Company from 1959 to 1968.  I will be sharing his memories on my Blog over the coming weeks.