{{Short description|19th-century American designer and inventor}} thumb|Ellene Alice Bailey, ca. 1893 thumb|E.A. Bailey powder puff design, U.S. patent no. 471,680, 1892. '''Ellene Alice Bailey''' (1853 – July 22, 1897) was an American designer and inventor specializing in clothing and household goods. She patented over a dozen of her many inventions.<ref name=stanley/>
==Biography== Ellene Alice Bailey was born in Pond Fort, just south of Wentzville, Missouri, the third daughter of Robert Bailey, a judge, and Lucinda (Zumwalt) Bailey. Early in her career, she moved to New York and built a business from manufacturing her own designs or selling them for outside manufacture.<ref name=willard1893/><ref name=willard1897/>
Bailey became a designer of clothing and household goods, as well as an inventor of practical devices. Her first design was the "Pond Fort boot", a close-fitting, knee-high boot that she patented in both the United States and Canada in 1880. Later clothing designs included a perforated felt chest protector, a sleeve holder, a waterproof leg protector, a detachable brassiere frame, and a corset shield.<ref name=willard1893/><ref name=willard1897/>
One of her early inventions was the "Dart" needle, first patented in 1884. She initially manufactured the Dart needle herself, making the first 60,000 on her own after the man she hired for the job absconded. She later had the needle manufactured by an outside firm. Other practical objects for the home included a holder for rubber overshoes, a manicure case, a photograph album, several clocks, ornamental tables, and a hand pinking device. A number of Bailey's inventions were novelty or seasonal goods, such as a silver whisk broom and a music roll sold as a Christmas card. On occasion, she improved designs originated by other inventors to make them salable.<ref name=willard1893/><ref name=willard1897/>
Bailey may have been the first American to patent a powder puff with her 1882 invention of a small drawstring cloth bag with a perforated bottom to distribute the powder evenly.<ref name=collecting>Compactstory. [http://collectingvintagecompacts.blogspot.com/2012/02/in-search-of-first-american-compact.html "In Search of the First American Compact"], Part 2. ''Collecting Vintage Compacts'', Feb. 10, 2012; updated May 29, 2014.</ref> She went on to invent three more variations on her powder puff, the last of them patented in 1892,<ref name=willard1893>Willard, Frances E., and Mary A. Livermore. "Bailey, Miss Ellen Alice". ''Fourteen Hundred Hundred-Seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks Of Life''. Moulton, 1893, pp. 43-44.</ref><ref name=willard1897/> and has been described as "America’s powder puff pioneer".<ref name=pioneercollecting>{{cite web|last=Compactstory|url=http://collectingvintagecompacts.blogspot.com/2012/02/in-search-of-first-american-compact.html |title=In Search of the First American Compact Part 2|website=Collecting Vintage Compacts|date= February 10, 2012|access-date=30 November 2017}}</ref>
==References== <references>
<ref name=stanley>Stanley, Autumn. ''Mothers and daughters of invention: Notes for a revised history of technology''. Rutgers University Press, 1995, p. 486.</ref>
<ref name=collecting>Compactstory. [http://collectingvintagecompacts.blogspot.com/2012/02/in-search-of-first-american-compact.html "In Search of the First American Compact"], Part 2. ''Collecting Vintage Compacts'', Feb. 10, 2012; updated May 29, 2014.</ref>
<ref name=willard1897>Willard, Frances E., and Mary A. Livermore, eds. ''American Women: Fifteen Hundred Biographies with Over 1,400 Portraits: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of the Lives and Achievements of American Women During the Nineteenth Century''. Vol. 2. Mast, Crowell & Kirkpatrick, 1897, pp. 43-44.</ref>
<ref name=willard1893>Willard, Frances E., and Mary A. Livermore. "Bailey, Miss Ellen Alice". ''Fourteen Hundred Hundred-Seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks Of Life''. Moulton, 1893, pp. 43-44.</ref>
</references>
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bailey, Ellene Alice}} Category:1853 births Category:1897 deaths Category:19th-century American inventors Category:19th-century American women inventors Category:American designers Category:American inventors Category:Inventors from Missouri Category:People from Wentzville, Missouri