The business of dressmaking.

Miss L. Green 1882-1902

Miss L. Green

 Lace and crepe wedding gown.

Lucy Green and her business is a good example of the difficulties of constructing a history from the scant public records available. She was at the same location at 507 Hennepin Avenue from 1887-1900, so she must have made a substantial number of garments during those years. We only know that she was born about 1860, probably in Minnesota. Her father’s name was Andrew and he may have been Swedish, though born in Maine. In 1880 she was a dressmaker in the family of Ed A. Stevens. After that she had her own shop on Washington Avenue and then Hennepin Avenue. She was in business with Anna Henderson as Green & Henderson from 1896-1899, where they employed at least six seamstresses. In 1902, her business information ends. There is a possibility that she married James H. Miller of Minneapolis in 1902, was widowed in 1910 and had a house built at 735 Kenwood Parkway in 1921, where she lived until her death in 1933.

The one remaining example of her work is a lovely silk crepe wedding gown worn August 31, 1892 by Mary Alexander of Anoka, Minnesota who married Ambrose E. Helmick of Minneapolis.