In May 1946, Elizabeth Arden appeared on the cover of TIME for something other than cosmetics: the horses of her Maine Chance Farm racing stable. Two of her runners entered the Kentucky Derby that year, but neither won.
Arden was already known for turning a Fifth Avenue beauty salon into an international cosmetics business. Her racing operation was another substantial venture, with its greatest Derby success still to come.
A Quick Look at the Life of Elizabeth Arden
Biography Summary
Elizabeth Arden, born Florence Nightingale Graham, was a Canadian-born cosmetics entrepreneur who combined beauty treatments with products sold through salons and retailers. She expanded into luxury destination spas while retaining control of the business that bore her chosen name, and became a notable thoroughbred owner.
Profile
Birth Name: Florence Nightingale Graham
Known As: Elizabeth Arden
Born: December 31, in Ontario, Canada; published birth years include 1878 and 1881
Died: October 18, 1966, in New York City
Known For: Building the Elizabeth Arden cosmetics and salon enterprise
Major Roles: Cosmetics entrepreneur, salon owner, and thoroughbred racehorse owner
Notable Achievement: Owner of Jet Pilot, winner of the 1947 Kentucky Derby
From Florence Graham to New York Beauty Work
Florence Nightingale Graham grew up in Ontario in a family of modest means. Her family worked in market gardening and farming, far removed from the upscale Fifth Avenue clientele she would later serve. Her early working life included a variety of jobs rather than a direct entry into the beauty trade.
She spent some time studying nursing and also worked assisting a dentist, but she did not complete a nursing qualification. Before 1910 she moved to New York, where she worked briefly for the pharmaceutical firm E. R. Squibb & Sons. A more consequential apprenticeship followed with Eleanor Adair, a beauty specialist whose business exposed Graham to facial massage, cosmetics preparation, and the commercial side of beauty services.
The Fifth Avenue Salon and the Elizabeth Arden Name
Graham entered business with Elizabeth Hubbard in a Fifth Avenue beauty venture. After their partnership ended, she continued in the trade under the name Elizabeth Arden, retaining Hubbard’s first name. The surname reportedly came from Tennyson’s poem Enoch Arden. The enterprise generally dates its founding to 1910; a contemporary profile placed the early salon at 509 Fifth Avenue.
Its red door became one of the business’s most distinctive signs. The salon setting helped connect beauty treatments with an atmosphere of refinement at a time when visible makeup still carried a social stigma in some circles. Arden offered customers a combination of specialist attention, carefully presented products, and an upscale place to receive treatments.
She did not single-handedly change public attitudes toward cosmetics. Other entrepreneurs and shifting social conventions were also expanding the market. Arden’s distinctive contribution was to turn her salon approach into a recognizable business identity that could travel beyond one New York address.
From Salon Treatments to Products Sold Across Borders
Arden’s next major step took her business beyond individual appointments. She offered customers products they could take home from the salon, extending its beauty routines beyond the treatment room.
In 1914, the chemist A. F. Swanson became an important collaborator. Contemporary reporting linked their work to Cream Amoretta and Ardena skin tonic. As orders increased, Arden expanded salon facilities and wholesale operations. By 1920, manufacturing needs had outgrown the earlier small laboratory.
By the 1920s, Arden was developing sales through department stores and drugstores alongside her salons. The network reached major American and European cities, including Washington, London, and Paris by 1925. Manufacturing and wholesale distribution had changed the scale of a business that began with face-to-face treatments.
Arden also developed more visible color cosmetics as beauty fashions changed. Exposure to European makeup styles during the 1910s formed part of that evolution. Her products joined a growing market for coordinated skincare regimens, an approach also developed by other major beauty entrepreneurs, including Helena Rubinstein and Madam C. J. Walker.
Among the products that became associated with the business was Eight Hour Cream, which the company dates to 1930. It became one of the brand’s signature products.
Expansion During the Depression, and Scrutiny of Beauty Claims
The economic downturn that began in 1929 did not halt Arden’s expansion. A detailed 1935 profile described her opening salons and building wholesale trade during the Great Depression, and identified her as the sole stockholder of the business at that time.
Arden told the 1935 reporter she saw opportunity when competitors pulled back. The same period’s coverage described her close involvement in products, packaging, and advertising, alongside a demanding management style and a reputation for employee turnover.
Not all of her treatments escaped criticism. The costly Vienna Youth Mask was an electrically heated treatment promoted with claims that it could restore “dead cells.” In 1935, The New Yorker challenged that claim and questioned other promises of rejuvenation. The criticism concerned the treatments’ asserted physiological effects, not a documented finding of injury.
Arden also competed closely with fellow cosmetics entrepreneur Helena Rubinstein. Their rivalry included commercial maneuvering and competition for employees. Each became a significant figure in a beauty industry shaped by many entrepreneurs, not one alone.
Maine Chance and the Idea of Total Beauty
For Arden, beauty services extended beyond what could be applied to the skin. Her salons offered exercise, massage, bathing, and attention to physical conditioning alongside cosmetics. The approach was often described as “total beauty,” bringing appearance, fitness, and personal care into one commercial program.
In 1934 she established Maine Chance, a residential beauty and health retreat in Maine. Guests could receive treatments while following programs that included exercise and controlled diets. It was a different offering from a short salon appointment: a destination devoted to an extended regimen.
Arden expanded the model with a Maine Chance retreat in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1947. These establishments were significant steps in luxury destination-spa services, although their promises of rejuvenation should not be treated as medically demonstrated results.
Fashion, Wartime Cosmetics, and Private Relationships
Arden added a fashion venture to her luxury businesses in 1943, engaging designer Charles James to lead a department and offering him a New York showroom. Their collaboration later ended amid disagreements; James also disputed the credit he received for the work.
During World War II, the Elizabeth Arden business also supplied makeup associated with American women in military service. The Montezuma Red shade became associated with women Marines, connecting a familiar cosmetic product with the presentation of women in wartime uniforms.
Arden married Thomas Jenkins Lewis in 1915. He worked in the business, including its wholesale operations, and the couple divorced in 1934. Her second marriage, to Michael Evlanoff in the early 1940s, also ended in divorce. The beauty company remained under Arden’s control.
The Racing Stable and a Kentucky Derby Victory
Alongside cosmetics and fashion, Arden developed Maine Chance Farm into a prominent thoroughbred racing operation. Contemporary reporting places her early horse ownership around 1931 and describes her growing involvement in stable decisions. The racing stable and the Maine Chance beauty retreats shared a name but were separate enterprises.
By 1946, her horses had become newsworthy enough for TIME to feature Arden on its May 6 cover in a racing context. Two of her runners, Knockdown and Lord Boswell, did not win that year’s Kentucky Derby; Assault took the race. The loss was a documented setback for a stable that had entered the season with considerable attention.
In 1947, Jet Pilot won the Kentucky Derby for Maine Chance Farm, ridden by Eric Guerin and trained by Tom Smith. The victory placed Arden among the women who had owned Derby winners; she was not the first.
Speaking about the connection she saw between her interests, Arden told TIME in 1946, “A beautiful horse is like a beautiful woman.” The racing results established an accomplishment independent of her beauty-industry reputation.
Elizabeth Arden’s Death and the Brand That Continued
Elizabeth Arden died in New York City on October 18, 1966. By the end of her life, the Fifth Avenue enterprise had become an international cosmetics and salon business. A TIME retrospective that year reported 50 salons in 33 countries—a contemporary description of its reach, not an independently audited lifetime total.
Arden’s name continued in commerce after her death, but the company did not remain the same independently owned enterprise she had controlled. It passed through several owners, including Eli Lilly, Fabergé, and Unilever. Revlon completed its acquisition of Elizabeth Arden, Inc. in 2016, and the brand remains part of Revlon’s corporate portfolio.
Arden’s lasting influence came from connecting an upscale salon experience with products, broad distribution, and a wider program of beauty and physical care. She was one influential figure among several who developed the modern cosmetics market. The success of Maine Chance Farm also ensures that her story belongs to the history of horse racing as well as beauty.
Timeline
These milestones trace Arden’s movement from early beauty work into an international business, destination spas, and thoroughbred racing.
December 31, 1878 or 1881
Florence Nightingale Graham is born in Ontario. Her birth year remains disputed.
Before 1910
Graham works in New York at E. R. Squibb & Sons and with beauty specialist Eleanor Adair.
Around 1910
Following the end of her partnership with Elizabeth Hubbard, she develops the Elizabeth Arden salon enterprise on Fifth Avenue.
1914–1920
Collaboration with chemist A. F. Swanson, larger premises, wholesale development, and increased manufacturing capacity support expansion.
By 1925
Elizabeth Arden salons have expanded to major cities in the United States and Europe.
1930
The company dates the introduction of Eight Hour Cream to this year.
1934
Arden opens the Maine Chance residential beauty retreat in Maine.
1935
Contemporary reporting describes continued salon and wholesale expansion through the Depression.
1943
Designer Charles James joins Arden’s fashion business.
1946
Arden appears on TIME‘s May 6 horse-racing cover. Her Derby entries do not win that year.
1947
Jet Pilot wins the Kentucky Derby for Maine Chance Farm. A second Maine Chance beauty retreat operates in Phoenix, Arizona.
October 18, 1966
Elizabeth Arden dies in New York City.
2016
Revlon completes the acquisition of Elizabeth Arden, Inc., decades after its founder’s death.
FAQs
Was Elizabeth Arden her birth name?
No. She was born Florence Nightingale Graham. After a salon partnership with Elizabeth Hubbard ended, she continued in business under the name Elizabeth Arden, which she also adopted personally.
When was Elizabeth Arden born?
Elizabeth Arden was born on December 31 in Ontario, Canada. Her birth year is disputed: published biographical records give both 1878 and 1881.
Is the story that Elizabeth Arden gave red lipstick to suffragists in 1912 true?
It is a popular but unverified story about a 1912 women’s suffrage march in New York. Later retellings say Arden handed out lipstick to marchers, but contemporary accounts do not convincingly document the giveaway, and versions disagree about the date. The march took place; Arden’s reported role remains unproven.
Did Elizabeth Arden win the Kentucky Derby?
As an owner, yes. Jet Pilot won the 1947 Kentucky Derby for her Maine Chance Farm operation, with Eric Guerin riding and Tom Smith training the horse. Arden was not the first woman to own a Derby winner.
Who owns the Elizabeth Arden brand today?
The Elizabeth Arden brand is part of Revlon’s corporate portfolio. Revlon acquired Elizabeth Arden, Inc. in 2016, long after Arden’s death in 1966. The current brand should not be confused with the independently controlled company she operated during her lifetime.
Interviews
Women in Wartime Service: A National WWII Museum Podcast
The National WWII Museum’s episode examines women’s service in the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard during World War II. It also offers context for beauty products associated with women Marines, including the Montezuma Red shade linked to the Elizabeth Arden business.
Historical Images and Archives
- Elizabeth Arden portrait, 1939 — Library of Congress
- Elizabeth Arden on the May 6, 1946 TIME cover
- Elizabeth Arden cosmetics advertising and business ephemera — Smithsonian collection record
Further Reading
- Stacy A. Cordery, Becoming Elizabeth Arden: The Woman Behind the Global Beauty Empire (2024)
- Kathy Peiss, Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture (1998)
Sources
- Library of Congress: Elizabeth Arden business-history profile, History of the beauty business, Earliest marches for women’s rights, 1939 Elizabeth Arden portrait
- The New Yorker: “Glamour, Inc.” (1935), “The Insider’s Outsider”, “Dressing Up”
- Smithsonian National Museum of American History: History of makeup, History of skin care
- TIME: “Lady’s Day in Louisville” (1946), “Hold Fast to Life & Youth” (1966), “The Beauty Merchant” (1965), Elizabeth Arden cover, May 6, 1946, “Assault, by Himself” (1946)
- Kentucky Historical Society: Women at the Kentucky Derby
- The Washington Post: Review of Becoming Elizabeth Arden
- Women in World History / Encyclopedia.com: Elizabeth Arden biographical entry
- Kirkus Reviews: Review of Becoming Elizabeth Arden
- Elizabeth Arden: Corporate heritage chronology, Brand history and timeline
- National WWII Museum: Women in the U.S. wartime services
- Revlon Group Holdings: Corporate brand portfolio
- Revlon / U.S. SEC: Completion of Elizabeth Arden acquisition (2016)
- National Park Service: History of women’s suffrage
- Eileen G’Sell / Literary Hub: The myth of the red-lipped suffragette
- Smithsonian Institution: Elizabeth Arden cosmetics collection