It was an ordinary day. Reading about a young woman named Hazel Dell Brown who worked at the Armstrong Cork Company and was perhaps the most influential residential interior designer of the 20th Century. Yesterday I wrote about Armstrong Flooring's revival of its famous "The Christmas Pattern" which for years and years was produced in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a few blocks from my house on North Queen Street. During much of the 20th Century, Armstrong Flooring distributed thousands of colorful decorating brochures and printed millions of advertisements featured regularly in close to 100 newspapers nationwide. The ads all showcased Armstrong Flooring with Hazel's colorful and thrifty room designs. Just about all advertisements at the time were black and white ads, but Hazel's Armstrong advertisements were all done in color! Hazel and her crew of design artists were not only creative, but prolific in what they did to promote Armstrong's flooring. At the time, most companies pushed ads for flooring in kitchens, but Armstrong and Mrs. Brown designed advertisements for kitchens, bathrooms, living rooms, bedrooms, mud rooms, basements, attics, in-law apartments, rental rooms, etc., etc. You name it and Helen had an advertisement designed for it. One new idea that Helen also started was allowing homemakers the opportunity to write to Armstrong for design ideas for a specific room in their home. It wasn't unusual for Armstrong to receive 1,000 or more pieces of mail each day seeking aide to help with designs using Armstrong products for a special room in their home. Helen also designed buildable plans for a "Balcony Apartment" designed to provide affordable housing options after WWII. Mrs. Hazel Brown gave lectures to the public, training sessions for company salespeople, wrote advertising copy and designed interiors for show houses and store windows all in the name of promoting Armstrong Cork Company. When Mrs. Brown retired from Armstrong, a news release announced that: For a generation, Mrs. Brown has had a great influence on the decorations of the nation's homes. Homemaking ideas which have appeared in Armstrong's full-color advertisements in national magazines have been used by decorators and advertisers throughout the country. Mrs. Brown had one mission while working at Armstrong...being focused on helping homeowners pull together rooms inexpensively...using furniture and decor they already had...recognizing that color was the place to start. Naturally, using Armstrong products was always in the back of her mind. She was even good at turning extra rooms into apartments to ease the housing shortage at the time. In her own words, in 1923, she wrote: "I am teaching the women of the whole country to love beautiful colors and harmonious combinations in their own home. We have given homemakers the creative urge, stimulating them to use what they have; to improvise and to discover their own ingenuity. We have added so-called social prestige to calico, tartan, moulin and 'done over' furniture." Mrs, Brown retired from Armstrong in 1952 and upon her retirement she received one letter of appreciation that read: "I find myself looking for your page when a new magazine arrives. They are so restful, so harmonious, so beautiful in themselves, as well as so full of suggesions for actual house furnishing. Of course, you have published these pictures to introduce your linoleum, but I am sure you have accomplished much more than that in showing great numbers of people how beautiful a simple home may be. You have accomplished more than the articles on 'Interior Decoration' in the same magazines in which your advertisements appear." Another writer said she was "The Dorothy Dix of Decorating." The writer went on to say that "I believe that Mrs. Brown's design ideas had much greater impact on 'every woman' Americans than professional interior designers." Mrs. Brown's 1948 "balcony cottage" design which was sold to the public was her most successful room design. Mrs. Brown was born 'Hazel Snepp' around 1892 in Lafayette, Indiana. She died at her home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on July 31, 1982. She was married to her high school sweetheart L. Glen Brown in 1918. Two months later her husband was sent to fight overseas in WWI. During his time away she earned a prestigious scholarship to attend Pratt Institute. Her husband never returned from the war. She was eventually named art director of the Indianapolis School District. She was later hired by Armstrong in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And...the rest is history as they say! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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