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"You need to believe in people's dreams,
especially women's."
"Madame" Beatrice Alexander knew how to dream
big. Born into a world in which many women worked
but few achieved prominence in business, she built
her own company virtually singlehandedly. Raised
amidst teeming poverty, she amassed a significant
fortune. From the obscurity of an immigrant
neighborhood, she became one of the foremost female
entrepreneurs of the twentieth century.
Women have always participated in business
endeavors, but until recently most did so as
members of a family unit. Alexander, by contrast,
was the driving force behind her firm, the
Alexander Doll Company, and she owed her position
not to her husband or her extended family but to
her own efforts and skill. Over the years, her hard
work, innovative ideas, and instinctive business
acumen enabled her to overcome many hurdles common
to both the business world in general and women
entrepreneurs more specifically.
Although Alexander's successes took her far from
the Lower East Side immigrant world of her
childhood, she never lost sight of those less
fortunate than she. She donated substantial sums to
both Jewish and non-Jewish organizations in Israel
and in the United States, and she was a committed
Zionist throughout her life. As a pioneering
businesswomen and a generous philanthropist,
Beatrice Alexander demonstrated to the world at
large what a woman with drive, creativity,
ambition, and a benevolent heart could
accomplish.
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