Pages
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Title
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A New Day
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Description
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"The 41st Symphony Designers' Showhouse Takes Aim at The National Spotlight." Two-page spread explains a new emphasis for the Designers' Showhouse. Karen Mills, a radio show host, interior designer and the co-chair for the Designers' Showhouse this year, envisions Kansas City becoming a design mecca. The 41st showhouse at 5833 Ward Parkway once belonged to dressmaker Nelly Don. The showhouse will also welcome children this year. Previously children were not admitted.
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Object Type
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Magazine Article
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Title
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''A Stitch in Time'' Premieres Friday
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Description
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The story of dress manufacturer Nell Donnelly Reed is captured in a new book and documentary film produced by her great great nephew Terence Michael O'Malley. The film is entitled "Nelly Don: A Stitch in Time" and premiered May 12, 2006, at the Screenland Theater in Kansas City, Missouri. "Her factories are now trendy lofts (the Western Auto building) and offices (Corrigan Building) but once produced 5,000 dresses a day. The 12th of the 13 Quinlan children born to Irish immigrants in Parsons, Kan., Nell made her first million dollars by the age of 26."
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Date
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2006-05-10
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Object Type
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Newspaper Article
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Title
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Outdoor Portrait of Women
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Description
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Outdoor group portrait of men and women at an unidentified park shelter. A woman holds a sign that reads "Wilson and Co. Plant Girls Picnic, 1920."
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Date
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1920
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Object Type
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Photograph
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Title
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Donnelly Garment Company Christmas Party
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Description
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Group portrait of uniformed employees holding gifts, Nell Donnelly Reed, and a person dressed as Santa Claus at a company Christmas party on the floor of a dressmaking plant.
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Date
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1936-12-24
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Object Type
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Photograph
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Title
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P31 Nelly Don Collection Finding Aid
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Description
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The Nelly Don Collection contains 35 black and white photographic prints donated to the Missouri Valley Special Collections in August 2001. The donor's aunt had been an employee of the Donnelly Garment Company and had collected these photographs. Few of the individuals in the photographs are identified, and many images are not dated. The photographs largely consist of Donnelly Garment Company employee group portraits on holiday and otherwise festive occasions.Nell Donnelly Reed was born Ellen Quinlan in Parsons, Kansas, 1889, and moved to Kansas City in 1906. She began designing and sewing her own housedresses, several of which she offered for sale to the George B. Peck Dry Goods Company in 1916. By 1931 she owned the Donnelly Garment Company, which manufactured the widely known "Nelly Don" line of women's apparel. Reed retired in 1956, and the organization's name was changed to Nelly Don, Inc. The company evolved throughout the 1960s and 70s, although the changing economic climate of the nation eventually brought its demise. The selling of fabrics was a sustaining innovation of the 1970s, but Nelly Don, Inc., filed for Chapter 10 bankruptcy in 1978.
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Date
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1920~/1950~
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Object Type
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Finding Aid
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Title
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Nell Donnelly Reed and Employees
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Description
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Group portrait of Nell Donnelly Reed and employees at Nelly Don Pioneers group luncheon in Reed's office.
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Date
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1937-06-08
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Object Type
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Photograph
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Title
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Donnelly Garment Company Christmas Party
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Description
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Interior view of Christmas party given by employees in honor of Nell Donnelly Reed's son, David, at a location identified as "Community Church."
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Date
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1932-12-23
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Object Type
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Photograph
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Title
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Woman Seated at Desk
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Description
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Informal portrait of woman at desk, identified by writing on photo as Mrs. Reeves.
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Object Type
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Photograph
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Title
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Portrait of Two Women
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Description
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Informal protrait of two unidentified women.
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Object Type
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Photograph
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Title
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Whoa, Nelly
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Description
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Brief item describing a documentary entitled Nelly Don: A Stitch in Time, created by Terence O'Malley, nephew of Nell Donnelly Reed. O'Malley published a companion biography of Reed in 2006, as well.
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Date
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2006-05-11
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Object Type
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Newspaper Article
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Title
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Enterprising Women
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Description
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Chapter in the book which highlights both Ida Rosenthal, founder of Maindenform, Inc., and Kansas City's Nell Donnelly Reed and her Nelly Don dresses.
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Date
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1976
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Object Type
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Book
Pages
