Jane Cloud

In 1933, Mildred Beam opened the Jane Cloud Beauty Salon on the ninth floor of the J. M. Gidding Building at 724 Fifth Avenue, New York. The opening of the salon completed her transition from school teaching into the beauty industry, a change in occupation that seems to be a direct consequence of her being mixed up in a scandalous court case in 1924.

Mildred Beam

Mildred Beam was born in Marshfield, Maine in 1897, the youngest of three sisters. The sisters all seem to have been well educated. Mildred’s older sister, Lura Ella Beam [1887-1978] graduated from the prestigious Barnard College in New York City and went on to become a noted author. Mildred went to Battin High School in Elizabeth, New Jersey and, after graduating in 1916, she enrolled in the teachers college at Columbia University, obtaining a degree of bachelor of science in physical education in 1920.

1920 Mildred Beam yearbook entry from Columbia

Above: 1920 Mildred Esther Beam, “Beamo”, looking very serious in her year book entry from Columbia University.

After graduating from Columbia, Mildred worked with the New York City Playgrounds Association for about two years before joining the Highland Manor School for girls in Tarrytown as a dancing and physical education instructor. In 1924, she was still living in Elizabeth, New Jersey but was now teaching physical training in the Grover Cleveland Junior High School in North Birmingham Avenue. It was while she was there that the scandalous court case broke.

Grover Cleveland Junior High School

Above: Grover Cleveland Junior High School.

The Baring germ-poison case

In 1924, Clarence Oakley Baring [b.1885] was arrested on the suspicion that he had tried to kill his wife – seven years his senior – first with arsenic and then with disease germs he had obtained under false pretences from the Willard Parker Hospital in Manhattan. It was thought that Baring was hoping to inherit his wife’s large estate – believed to be about US$200,000 – and then marry a pretty school teacher he had fallen in love with, the school teacher being Mildred Beam.

1924 Newspaper report concerning Clarence Baring and his wife.

Above: 1924 Newspaper report concerning the trial of Clarence O. Baring with Mildred Beam featuring prominently.

Mildred had been seeing Clarence for a number of years – perhaps from as early as 1920 – but she was reported to be under the misapprehension that he was separated from his wife and planning a divorce.

The court case generated a great deal of newsprint as the story twisted and turned over the next year or so. At Baring’s trial, in July, 1924, two doctors testified that Baring was insane and the District Attorney asked that a mistrial be declared. When the court agreed, Baring was committed to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane but released under bail one year later, in July, 1925, after mental tests by alienists showed him to be sane after all.

The expected retrial did not take place as, by October, 1925, Baring had reconciled with his wife who then stated publicly that she would not give evidence against him. Unfortunately for Mildred, even though the court case was dropped, articles about the scandal continued to appear for some time to come keeping her name in print.

1926 The Tampa Tribune

Above: Amazing aftermath of the notorious Baring germ-poison scandal (“The Tampa Tribune,” Sunday, January 3, 1926).

The Baring germ-poison scandal caused Mildred to resign from Grover Cleveland and it put an end to her career as a school teacher. Looking for a fresh start she came to work for Elizabeth Arden. Exactly when this happened is unknown to me but there is a record of her travelling with Tom Lewis on the Olympic from Cherbourg to New York in August, 1927 with her address on the manifest given as Chicago. This suggest that Mildred may have started working in the Arden salon in Chicago when it opened in 1926. She remained with Arden until at least 1932.

When Mildred left Elizabeth Arden to start up her own salon Arden’s animosity towards her was heightened by Arden’s suspicion that Mildred had been having an affair with Tom Lewis, Arden’s husband, and that he had helped Mildred set up on her own (Lewis & Woodworth, 1973, p. 153). Arden also believed that Mildred had taken a copy of the Elizabeth Arden New York salon client list with her when she left, supplied to her by Dorothy M. Gilder Cook, an Arden credit manager. Needless to say, Arden sacked Dorothy Cook with a lot of ‘colourful language’. Cook then sued for slander.

Despite Arden’s misgivings, there is no concrete evidence that Tom Lewis was having an affair with Mildred or that he bankrolled her business. An investigator Arden hired to investigate Milred turned up the Baring germ-poison scandal but did not find anything to support Arden’s suspicions of an affair with Tom Lewis. However, by this time, Arden’s relationship with her husband had completely broken down and the couple divorced in 1934.

See also: Elizabeth Arden (1930-1945)

Jane Cloud salon

The Jane Cloud salon on Fifth Avenue was fitted out with a reception room, at least two treatment rooms and an exercise room. There were also facilities for providing electrical treatments delivered by a nurse.

1933 Reception Room

Above: 1933 Reception in the New York salon decorated by Joseph B. Platt [1895-1986] with Chinese wallpaper in a morning glory pattern on one side and mirrored walls on the other. The woman at the desk appears to be Mildred Beam (Museum of the City of New York).

Mildred also opened a second salon, called the ‘Art of Loveliness’ in Barns Block, Newtown Lane, East Hampton in 1933 which, I imagine, operated during the summer season.

Salon treatments

The treatments available in the Jane Cloud salon included facials, face masks, full body massages and reduction exercises. There are suggestions that Mildred started out with Arden as a barefoot dancing instructor which explains why foot massages were a specialty of the salon.

On the theory that much of the tension and strain evident in women’s faces is the result of weary feet, foot and leg massage is given by a masseuse. After taut muscles in the feet have been relaxed and the circulation sent soaring, the facialist follows with a back massage. After that, the face is ministered fo with soothing creams and tonics.

(Jane Cloud advertorial, 1933)

A new type of skin care comes gliding in with the new season at JANE CLOUD’S Salon on 5th Ave. This marvelous masque counteracts enlarged pores, a sallow, sluggish condition, lines and wrinkles, and is most successful in undoing the ravages of age. Next time you have a special “date” stop in for a beauty “pick-up,” your face will be painted with this magic masque . . . it dries while a specially trained attendant gives your ‘tootsies’ a grand massage with Jane Cloud’s famous foot cream . . . say . . . this marvelous treatment is without peer anywhere.

(Jane Cloud advertorial, 1934)

1933 Treatment Room

Above: 1933 Treatment Room in the New York salon (Museum of the City of New York).

1933 Chair and stand in the Treatment Room

Above: 1933 Chair and work stand in the Treatment Room in the New York salon (Museum of the City of New York).

Products

Jane Cloud beauty products included a small range of skin-care creams and lotions for the face along with the previously mentioned foot cream. She also sold some make-up items including lipstick, rouge and face powder.

1933 Jane Cloud products

Above: 1933 Jane Cloud Face Powder, Jane Cloud Strong Tonic, Jane Cloud Mild Tonic and Jane Cloud Cream for Cleansing (Museum of the City of New York).

Closure

Although Mildred managed to get her products into a few retail outlets the business seems to have failed by the end of the decade. Part of the reason for this may have been because by then Mildred was suffering badly from arthritis, a condition that makes working in the beauty business very difficult, if not impossible.

The last record I have for Mildred Beam is her impulsive marriage to Wilbur Pledge Brown in Minneapolis in 1936. Mildred was in Minneapolis to take charge of a beauty salon in the John W. Thomas & Co. department store. She was recognised by Pledge as he had worked as a newspaper reporter on the Baring germ-poison case back in 1924.

Unfortunately, Mildred’s ability to discern a suitable life partner had not improved. Pledge Brown was a heavy drinker, passed bad checks in different parts of the country and did the occasional stretch in jail. The marriage probably ended in 1936 when Pledge was jailed for stealing a hotel stenographer’s typewriter. In 1938, he married on impulse once more, this time to a woman he had only just met. He was drunk at the time, his intoxication getting him thrown into jail after the wedding. His new wife, Jane Case Brown, filed for an annulment when she sobered up.

Timeline

1933Jane Cloud salon opened in New York.
Salon opened in East Hampton.
New Products: Jane Cloud range.
1934New Products: Jane Cloud Foot Cream.

2nd March 2019

Sources

Lewis, A. A., & Woodworth, C. (1973). Miss Elizabeth Arden. London: W. H. Allen.

Woodhead, L. (2003). War paint. Miss Elizabeth Arden and madame Helena Rubinstein their lives, their times, their rivalry. London: Virago Press.