{{Short description|Australian businesswoman}} {{Infobox person | name = Adeline May Keating | image = Adeline Keating from the cover of her biog.jpg | image_size = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = 8 January 1885 | birth_place = Bendigo | death_date = 7 March 1957 | death_place = Brighton, Victoria | death_cause = | other_names = | known_for = buyer for the Myer Emporium | education = | employer = Myer Emporium | occupation = buyer | signature = | website = | footnotes = }} '''Adeline May Keating''' (8 January 1885 – 7 March 1957) was an Australian businesswoman. She rose to be an international buyer for Sidney Myer's emporium. She was said to be the highest paid businesswoman in Australia.
==Life== Keating was born in Bendigo in 1885. Her mother was Ann Jobling (born Todd) and her father was William Keating and she was their seventh surviving child. She had a complex relationship with her father who was a sharebroker. He regarded her as an unwanted child and her feelings for him evolved from respect to hate. He went broke and died in 1908. For the next ten years she and her mother lived in poverty and Keating gave up her dream of becoming an actress.<ref name=aadrb>{{Citation |last=Hellegers |first=Joan |title=Adeline May Keating (1885–1957) |url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/keating-adeline-may-10665 |work=Australian Dictionary of Biography |access-date=2023-12-22 |place=Canberra |publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |language=en}}</ref>
On 5 August 1915 Sidney Myer opened his emporium, a building so iconic that its frame is still retained in the Emporium Melbourne on the same site over 100 years later.<ref>{{Cite web |year=2023 |title=MYER MELBOURNE (FORMER MYER EMPORIUM) |url=https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/2518/download-report |website=Victorian Heritage Database Report Report}}</ref> Keating who had met Myer walked miles to join the crowd and she was hired to be a salesperson in the store. She found success in the business.<ref name=aadrb/> thumb|c.1924 – Myer's Melbourne Emporium During World War One there was a shortage of men and Lee Neil recognised the ability of Keating. In 1919, she was paid three pounds per week and she sailed for Japan to purchase toys as stock for the company.<ref name=aadrb/> She became the stores chief buyer which was a role normally held by a man. She was the highest paid Australian businesswoman and she treated Myer disrespectfully. She was known for her tirades against him which included anti-semitic insults. However he did not sack her.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Liffman |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PGhZCdSieuwC&dq=%22adeline+keating%22&pg=PA19 |title=A Tradition of Giving: Seventy-five Years of Myer Family Philanthropy |page=19|year=2004 |publisher=Melbourne Univ. Publishing |isbn=978-0-522-85062-8 |language=en}}</ref>
She travelled for three-quarters of every year and she would return each Christmas to organise that year's toy display in the store. She went to the USA, Germany, the UK and other European countries. She was brought back in disgrace once but she kept her job. She began buying again in Japan. In 1932 she resigned and started her own manufacturing business. Keating died in the Melbourne suburb of Brighton.<ref name=aadrb/>
In 1987 Joan Hellegers' biography of her was published. It was titled "Against the Current: The Story of Adeline Keating."<ref name=bukybuk>{{Cite book |last=Hellegers |first=Joan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YpyvAAAACAAJ&q=%22AGAINST+THE+CURRENT.+The+Story+of+Adeline+Keating.%22 |title=Against the Current: The Story of Adeline Keating |year=1987 |publisher=Dent |isbn=978-0-86770-054-1 |language=en}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
== External links == * [https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/keating-adeline-may-10665 Biography at ADB]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Keating, Adeline May}} Category:1885 births Category:1957 deaths Category:People from Bendigo Category:Australian businesspeople in retailing Category:20th-century Australian businesswomen Category:20th-century Australian businesspeople