Verdugo Views: Glendale woman was instrumental in early skin care
Fanny Briggs Carr was one of a handful of Victorian-era American women who transformed skin care from made-at-home into today’s multibillion-dollar business. And she lived right here in Glendale.
When Carr founded her face-preparations line in 1896, she was in the vanguard of a brand-new industry, created for women by women.
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“Fanny’s life was so unique that we are launching an exhibit at the Doctor’s House Museum in Brand Park honoring Fanny and her contributions to Glendale,” assistant director Peter Rusch wrote recently in an email. “Joemy Wilson, one of our docents, has been meticulously uncovering some of the secrets of Carr’s life and will be curating this exhibit for all to see.”
For centuries, women had compounded skin remedies from plants grown in their kitchen gardens. Instructions on protecting skin from the sun, curing burns and minimizing the effects of smallpox were passed from mother to daughter and from neighbor to neighbor.
By the 19th century, cosmetic preparations were available in stores. However, many had dangerous ingredients, such as lead, mercury or arsenic, so women were wary of them.
Several factors, including the advent of photography and the wide distribution of photographs of actresses and other famous beauties, led to the acceptance of skin care and makeup.
Carr was one of several American women who seized the moment. Her cosmetic line featured cucumbers, long used in face preparations. Their astringent properties also contained a mild bleaching agent.
“Cleopatra used them to smooth and lighten her skin, and Elizabethan women made concoctions from them,” Wilson noted.
The innovative young Fanny Briggs, originally from New Orleans, married William Carr in 1892, four years before founding her cosmetic line and, by 1900, the couple was living on a large property east of downtown Glendale.
Carr’s cosmetic line was a phenomenal success at first, and she became known as the Cucumber Cream Queen. Then — just a few years after their wedding — her husband died, and soon things started to go wrong for Carr.
In 1903, she married Maurice King, but when he tried to take her money and her business and threatened to have her put in an asylum, she filed for divorce.
In 1922, tired from overwork, she turned the business over to her partner, Edna Fay Bisbee, and took a five-month cruise around the world.
Bisbee removed Carr’s picture from the products and put on her own. Sales plummeted, Wilson said. Carr sued and eventually retained her business.
A few years later, in 1932, Carr again entrusted her business and property to someone else. She named a recent acquaintance, Everett B. Lawsten, as sole trustee. Differences of opinion soon arose, Wilson wrote, and Carr revoked the trust, retrieving her property yet again.
When Carr died in 1937, at age 76, after a two-year illness, she left her business to her stepbrother, Nathaniel C. Briggs, and her property to the city of Glendale. But, instead of paying attention to the business, Briggs fought the city for the property.
“Fortunately, he lost,” Wilson said, “And today, we have Carr Park.”
There’s lots more to learn about Fanny Briggs Carr — including the divorce party she threw at her ranch and her animal-rights activism — at the Doctor’s House Museum, 1692 Brand Park Drive, from April 17 through June 26.
Readers Write:
Nami Donals, featured in Verdugo Views on Dec. 3, 2015, and Jan. 28, 2016, emailed: “I had more old friends coming out of the past and bringing back fond memories. One friend had taken so many pictures in Amache Relocation Camp in Colorado, he had put them all together into a permanent album, which included many old friends we ran around with in camp. Just wanted to thank you again for doing such a beautiful job.”
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Stuart Byles emailed a thank-you for the column on the West Glendale Winery on March 10, “and the call-outs to me and the StoneBarn Vineyard. I’ve had very positive feedback on it. You ended it like I did, with the mention of the neighborhood still called ‘Vineyard.’”
Byles, who often lectures about local wine history, noted, “A gentleman who was listening to one of my lectures on this subject got very emotional because he had grown up there, remembered the building, but had no idea about all the hotel/winery history involved.”
Byles will be giving a talk at 2 p.m. April 3 at the Los Angeles Central Public Library, 630 W. 5th St., in the Mark Taper Auditorium. Admission is free.
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KATHERINE YAMADA can be reached at katherineyamada@gmail.com. or by mail at Verdugo Views, c/o News-Press, 202 W. First St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. Please include your name, address and phone number.
