Anne Swainson was an educator, product designer, and graphic artist from Nevada, Missouri. Starting her career in education, she built upon her experiences at Hull House, a famous social welfare organization in Chicago, to eventually become the first female executive at Montgomery Ward & Company, one of the nation’s largest department stores.

Anne Swainson was born on October 28, 1888, in Nevada, Missouri, to Per Swainson and Bettie Olson Swainson. Both of her parents immigrated to the United States from Sweden in the 1860s. Per Swainson settled in northeast Missouri before moving to Nevada in southwest Missouri to work as a painter and interior decorator. He was also involved with the Vernon County Horticultural Society. Bettie Olson grew up in Kansas City before marrying Per and moving to Nevada. Anne was the second of their three children.

After graduating from Nevada High School, Swainson enrolled at the University of Missouri. As a student, she was very active in campus organizations, including the Current Events Club, Young Women’s Christian Association, Vernon County Club, and served as vice president of the Home Economics Club. In 1908, she was profiled by the University Missourian for her manicure services in an article about young women working their way through college. Swainson earned a bachelor’s degree in education with a focus on vocational training from the university in 1909.

After graduating, Swainson was hired to teach vocational training in Columbus, Ohio. From 1910 to 1912, she served as supervisor for industrial art in the elementary schools of Columbus. At the same time, she also completed coursework toward a master’s degree in education from Columbia University in New York in 1913.

The year 1915 marked a major change in Swainson’s life. After earning a second master’s degree in household arts from the University of Chicago, she was hired by Illinois State Normal University (now Illinois State University) to serve as an instructor in its applied arts department.

In addition to teaching at Illinois State, Swainson also curated exhibits and taught classes in textiles (making clothing or other items from cloth) at Hull House in Chicago. First organized in 1889 by social activists Ellen Gates Starr and Jane Addams, Hull House was created to be a place that helped poor residents and recently arrived immigrants by teaching them practical skills and offering basic education. By the time Swainson began teaching there, Hull House had grown into a wide range of educational, artistic, and job training programs at several different buildings.

In 1916, Swainson left Illinois State and accepted a teaching position at the Los Angeles Normal School (now UCLA) in California. In 1919, she was hired in the Department of Household Arts at the University of California at Berkeley. For the next decade, she taught textiles, metalwork, jewelry, pottery, and industrial design. When not teaching, she traveled extensively throughout Europe visiting textile manufacturers to learn about new designs and styles.

In 1928, she left teaching to focus on industrial design. She was hired by Lord & Taylor, a leading New York department store, as a stylist for textiles in its design department. Next, she worked as a designer for the Scranton Lace Company before moving to Chase Brass & Copper Company in Connecticut as director of design in its specialty sales department. Though known for its building and plumbing supplies, the company expanded its designs to feature household items such as vases, candlesticks, and small appliances.

In the early 1930s, Swainson was hired by Montgomery Ward & Company to lead its new Bureau of Design. Montgomery Ward  was originally a mail-order company where customers ordered items directly from its catalog and then received their purchases by mail.  The company made a major change in the 1920s and 1930s when it opened department stores that customers could visit in person. By the time Swainson joined the company, it had more than six hundred department stores nationwide. One of Swainson’s major responsibilities was to update the look of many of Montgomery Ward’s products, as well as those of other suppliers who sold their items through the company. Among the items she and her team redesigned were kitchen items such as knives and forks, radios, tires, and toasters.

Despite sagging profits at the start of the Great Depression, Montgomery Ward & Company saw increased sales by the mid-1930s. In 1934, she oversaw a complete redesign of the company’s catalog so that it included  black-and-white photographs of products. Under Swainson’s leadership, the Bureau of Design soon expanded to a staff of more than thirty designers. Focusing on architects as well as industrial designers such as herself, Swainson identified up-and-coming artists who could better connect with buyers and clients. She also gave public presentations around the United States as a way to network with other design professionals and introduce potential customers to Montgomery Ward’s products. For the next twenty-two years, Swainson’s Bureau of Design continued to change and grow, meeting the challenges of financial depression in the 1930s and restrictions on the economy during World War II, and then helping Montgomery Ward enter into the nation’s booming economy after the war.

By the end of her career with Montgomery Ward & Company, Swainson had become the first woman executive within the company’s top leadership. On May 19, 1955, Anne Swainson died of a heart attack at work. Later that year, a scholarship was established in her honor at the Art Institute of Chicago by the Home Fashions League.

Swainson left a lasting legacy in the field of design; renowned weaver and designer Dorothy Liebes identified her as a major influence on her career. Though Montgomery Ward struggled to adapt to the needs of shoppers in the last decades of the twentieth century, Anne Swainson is often credited with breathing new life into the company during the mid-twentieth century. Her work helped Montgomery Ward to continue into the twenty-first century, when it closed its last stores in 2001 and became an online company.

Text and research by Sean Rost

For more information about Anne Swainson’s life and career, see the following resources:

Society Resources

The following is a selected list of books, articles, and manuscripts about Anne Swainson in the research centers of The State Historical Society of Missouri. The Society’s call numbers follow the citations in brackets.

Articles from the Newspaper Collection

• “Commencement Exercises May 17.” Nevada Southwest Mail. May 12, 1905. p. 4.
• “Millinery, Manicuring, Stenography and Housework Aids to Girls Who Seek University Education Here.” University Missourian. November 30, 1908. p. 1.
• “To Teach Missouri Children.” University Missourian. May 31, 1909. p. 3.
• “Responsible Position for Miss Anna Swainson.” Nevada Southwest Mail. August 6, 1909. p. 3.
• “Per Swainson Dies at Home in Nevada.” Nevada Weekly Post. October 6, 1916. p. 5.
• “Nevada Girl Touring Italy with Mrs. Jack London.” Southwest Mail and Weekly Post. May 21, 1926. p. 5.
• “Former Nevada Girl Goes Abroad for New York City Firm.” Southwest Mail and Weekly Post. March 15, 1929. p. 5.
• “Miss Anna Swainson Has Excellent Position with the Scranton Lace Co.” Southwest Mail and Weekly Post. March 7, 1930. p. 5.
• “Mrs. Per Swainson Died in Oakland, California, Former Nevada Resident.” Southwest Mail and Weekly Post. November 23, 1934. p. 2.

Books and Articles

• University of Missouri. The Savitar. Columbia: University of Missouri, 1907. [REF 378.778UMC V8 1907]
• University of Missouri. The Savitar. Columbia: University of Missouri, 1908. [REF 378.778UMC V8 1908]
• University of Missouri. The Savitar. Columbia: University of Missouri, 1909. [REF 378.778UMC V8 1909]

Manuscript Collection

• University of Missouri, Department of Home Economics Records (C0993)
  Correspondence and miscellaneous papers concerning faculty, facilities, alumni, curriculum, and department bulletins.

Outside Resources

These links will take you outside the Society’s website. The Society is not responsible for the content of the following websites:

• Bard College
  This website is hosted by Bard College and features an article by Pat Kirkham titled, “In a Man’s World: Women Industrial Designers.”
• Chicago Design Stories
  This website is hosted by Chicago Design Stories and features a biography of Anne Swainson by Vicki Matranga and William E. Meehan Jr.