Honing décor and dinner party skills is an improbable way of casting off the shackles of female serfdom, but Martha Stewart’s domestic advice for American women has seen her storm the traditionally male world of business.
A hygienic cook, America’s most famous professional housewife has nevertheless had her finger in many figurative pies. Stewart has her own TV series, magazine and even branded houseware.
Stewart’s philosophy is simple: doing things for yourself is liberating in itself, even if it is just making your own applesauce for a change. It’s the American way.
A household name in every sense of the word
Born in the industrial Jersey City, New Jersey in 1941, Martha Stewart was one of five siblings in a close-knit Polish-American family. Her father instilled a can-do attitude, teaching her gardening, for instance, when she was three. Her mother taught her cooking, baking and sewing.
A good-looking girl, Stewart began her career modelling, before working as a stockbroker. She then started up a catering business in 1976, initially in her basement. A decade later it was worth $1 million.
Stewart wrote articles for the New York Times and had a stint as editor of House Beautiful magazine. She dispensed advice on weddings, hors d’oeuvres and house restorations, among other things.
Regular appearances on the Today show brought her nationwide recognition. But her earnings went into the stratosphere when her magazine, Martha Stewart Living, reached a circulation of 1.3 million. It was from this and her half-hour TV show of the same name that the conglomerate Martha Stewart Omnimedia emerged.
Stewart served a five-month prison sentence in 2004 for misleading federal investigators and obstructing an investigation into her alleged involvement in insider trading, although this charge itself was dropped. One can only imagine her disgust at the prison food and decor.
Shortly after her release she played the role of ruthless boss in The Apprentice: Martha Stewart.
Having been – on paper – a billionaire in 1999 when she floated her conglomerate on the stock market, her value has since plummeted. Martha Stewart is unbowed by her travails, however, and still has female Middle America in her thrall – a household name in every sense of the word.
