Diana Macias
Economics 2301
Frank Vigil
10 March 2012
Este Lauder
Estee Lauder was born on July 1, 1908 in Queens, New York with the name of Josephine
Esther Mentzer. Her parents were Max and Rose Mentzer, her father was a Jewish custom
tailor who ran a hardware store, and her mother was French Catholic who always warned
Estee about the harmful effects the sun had. She remembered how embarrassed she felt by
the umbrella her mother would always use, the accent her parents had, and the fact that
they were immigrants. She always wanted to be one-hundred percent American. She was
influenced by her uncle John Shotzto start her future business. He was a chemist that
created creams for the face in his improvised laboratory. He showed Estee how to make a
cream for her face that years later she improved and sold it under her own market and
under her own name.
Alpern mentions that around the age of nineteen she met Joseph Lauter, about three years
later they got married on January 15, and another three years later their son Leonard Allen
was born on March 19. In 1937, she started using the spelling of Lauder for the name of
her new products. They got divorced in 1939 and got remarried in 1942. Joseph decided to
quit his job to join Estee’s and became a partnership. Joseph took care of running the
factory and dealing with the production and the finances, as Estee took control over the
