Aline Davis Hays
{{short description|American clothing designer, textile manufacturer, and arts promoter (1887–1944)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Aline Davis Hays
| image = AlineDavisHays1933.png
| alt = A white woman with dark wavy hair, looking at a thread in her hands.
| caption = Aline Davis Hays, from a 1933 newspaper.
| other_names = Aline Davis Fleisher
| birth_name = Aline Julia Davis
| birth_date = April 12, 1887
| birth_place = New York, US
| death_date = {{death date and age|1944|06|03|1887|04|12}}
| death_place = New York, US
| occupation = Textile designer, organizer, pacifist, arts administrator
| years_active =
| organization = League of Women Shoppers
| known_for = Consumer protection advocacy
| notable_works =
| movement = Women's poll tax repeal movement
| spouse(s) = {{Marriage|Arthur Garfield Hays|1924}}
| children = 3
| relatives =
}}
Aline Davis Hays (April 12, 1887 – June 3, 1944), born Aline Julia Davis, was an American clothing designer, textile manufacturer, and arts promoter, president of the League of Women Shoppers, a pro-labor consumers' rights organization.
Early life
Aline Davis was born in New York, the daughter of Charles L. Davis and Julia Minzheimer Davis. Her parents were Jewish.{{Cite web|title=First American Jewish Families|url=http://americanjewisharchives.org/publications/fajf/results.php?pg=49|access-date=2020-11-15|website=American Jewish Archives|language=en}} She attended art school as a young woman, but left to marry her first husband.{{Cite news|last=Alden|first=Alice|date=1933-09-29|title=World Awaits Women with New Ideas|pages=21|work=The Evening News|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63313494/world-awaits-women-with-new-ideasalice/|access-date=2020-11-15|via=Newspapers.com}}
Career
Aline Fleisher was a clothing designer who made theatrical costumes in New York in the 1910s. She also wrote a suffrage pageant with Hazel MacKaye, which was performed at Carnegie Hall in March 1919.{{Cite journal|last=Collins|first=Kristin|date=Winter 2012|title=Representing Injustice: Just as an Icon of Women's Suffrage|url=https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1072&context=faculty_scholarship|journal=Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities|volume=191|pages=215, note 110}} In 1922, she was one of the three organizers of the People's Art Assembly, an experimental art show in New York City intended to make art accessible to working people, with free admission and longer hours.{{Cite journal|last=Van Doren|first=Harold Livingston|date=July 1, 1922|title=An Appeal to the People|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H7JIAAAAYAAJ&dq=Aline+Davis+Fleisher&pg=PA466|journal=The Survey|volume=48|pages=466–467}}{{Cite news|date=1922-05-14|title=People's House Art Show|pages=18|work=New-York Tribune|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35891418/new-york-tribune/|access-date=2020-11-15|via=Newspapers.com}} She became a department store stylist in the late 1920s, and finding the available fabrics lacking, she began designing fashionable cotton prints for Ameritex-Sudanette.{{Cite news|date=June 11, 1934|title=Cottons: Mrs. Aline Davis Hays Resigning From Ameritex Sudanette|page=10|work=Women's Wear Daily}}{{Cite news|date=September 27, 1933|title=Cottons: Weaves And Patterns Follow Classic Tradition Of Elegance In Cottons In Ameritex-Sudanette Resort Group: Classic Elegance Is Weaves.|page=14|work=Women's Wear Daily}} In 1933, she explained her belief that "Every woman who has any creative talent should foster and develop it, no matter what difficulty or opposition she may encounter."
In 1938, Hays was elected first president of the League of Women Shoppers, a consumer rights' organization she co-founded in 1935.{{Cite news|date=1938-05-22|title=Heads Women Shoppers; Mrs. Aline D. Hays Elected by National League|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1938/05/22/archives/heads-women-shoppers-mrs-aline-d-hays-elected-by-national-league.html|access-date=2020-11-15|issn=0362-4331}} She was arrested in 1936, for picketing a department store accused of unfair labor practices.{{Cite news|date=June 4, 1944|title=Mrs. Arthur G. Hayes, Lawyer's Wife, Dead: Founded Shoppers' League to Aid Workers in Stores|page=42|work=The New York Times}} Her name was mentioned in testimony before the House Special Committee on Un-American Activities in 1938, when political activist J. B. Matthews commented "Aline Davis Hays has supported a good many Communist-front organizations"{{Cite book|last=United States Congress House Special Committee on Un-American Activities|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bZwFAAAAMAAJ&dq=Aline+Davis+Hays&pg=PA3292|title=Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States: Hearings Before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Seventy-sixth Congress, Third Session on H. Res. 282 ... Executive Hearings ...|date=1943|pages=3292|language=en}} based on her leadership of the League of Women Shoppers,{{Cite book|last=Storrs|first=Landon R. Y.|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.cttq95d1|title=The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left|date=2013|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-15396-4|pages=51–85|jstor=j.cttq95d1}} her activities in peace and labor causes and the women's poll tax repeal movement, and her support for friends with Communist affiliation.{{Cite book|last=United States Congress House Special Committee on Un-American Activities (1938-1944)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VZ1YAAAAMAAJ&dq=Aline+Davis+Hays&pg=PA1003|title=Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States: Hearings Before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Seventy-fifth Congress|date=1944|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|pages=1003–1004|language=en}} She submitted an affidavit to the committee, disputing Matthews' comments.{{Cite book|last=House|first=United States Congress|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_yxM8_BErq8C&dq=Aline+Davis+Hays&pg=PA3071|title=Hearings|date=1938|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|pages=3071|language=en}}
In 1941, she was co-founder of the Citizens' Committee for Government Arts Projects.{{Cite web|title=A Finding Aid to the Citizens' Committee for Government Arts Projects records, 1941|url=https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/citizens-committee-government-arts-projects-records-15832|access-date=2020-11-15|website=Archives of American Art|language=en}} She was also honorary chair of the American Peace Mobilization's New York council.{{Cite news|date=June 4, 1941|title=N.Y. Hotels Facing Jim Crow Suits|page=1|work=The Chicago Defender}}
Personal life
Aline Davis married Walter S. Fleisher in 1910.{{Cite news|date=1910-02-20|title=Untitled social item|pages=54|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/40330830/the-new-york-times/|access-date=2020-11-15|via=Newspapers.com}} They had two children. She married civil rights lawyer Arthur Garfield Hays in 1924, as his second wife.{{Cite web|last=Dowell|first=Chelsea|date=2016-12-15|title=Village People: Arthur Garfield Hays|url=https://www.villagepreservation.org/2016/12/15/village-people-arthur-garfield-hays/|access-date=2020-11-15|website=Village Preservation|language=en-US}} They had a daughter, Jane.{{Cite news|date=1954-12-14|title=Arthur G. Hays, 73, Champion of Civil Rights, Dies in N.Y.|pages=23|work=The Central New Jersey Home News|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63314153/arthur-g-hays-73-champion-of-civil/|access-date=2020-11-15|via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite web|date=May 3, 2016|title=Jane Butler Obituary|url=https://www.legacy.com/amp/obituaries/nytimes/179860018|access-date=2020-11-15|website=New York Times|language=en}} Jane married prominent American lawyer {{Interlanguage link|William J. Butler (lawyer)|lt=William J. Butler|||qid=Q95326561}}.{{Cite web|title=Biographical Sketch of William J. Butler|url=https://law.uc.edu/education/library/archives/butlerpapers/biographical-sketch-of-william-j--butler.html|access-date=2020-11-16|website=University of Cincinnati College of Law|language=en-us}} She died in 1944, aged 57 years, in New York.{{Cite news|date=June 5, 1944|title=Obituaries: Mrs. Aline Davis Hays|page=18|work=Women's Wear Daily}}
References
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Category:American textile designers
Category:American arts administrators
Category:Women arts administrators
Category:Jewish American activists