Anna Bissell: America’ s First Female CEO
At a time when most women were barred not only from voting but also owning property or holding leadership positions, Anna Bissell( 1846 – 1934) rose to the helm of one of the most successful manufacturing companies in the United States. She did not merely manage her late husband’ s invention— she transformed it into a global household name.
Appointed as CEO of Bissell Carpet Sweeper Company in 1889, Anna became the first female CEO of a major American corporation. In this role, she was a forward-thinking leader who prioritized product quality, employee welfare, global strategy and ethical management— building the company’ s long-term value long before these became corporate buzzwords.
Her life began in De Pere, Wisconsin, where her family had settled after leaving Nova Scotia. Completing all the formal education available to her, she became a teacher at age 16. Three years later, she married Melville R. Bissell and settled in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Though Bissell would become a household name in carpet sweepers, this was not its original business.
The couple first ran a crockery and china business. All of the stock arrived in crates packed with sawdust, which became embedded in the carpets and proved nearly impossible to remove. In 1876, after numerous complaints from Anna, Melville invented the revolutionary carpet sweeper. When customers saw how much easier this made the cleaning, they wanted a sweeper of their own, and soon they were selling more sweepers than crockery.
Anna became a star salesperson, traveling from town to town to sell sweepers for $ 1.50 apiece. On a trip to Philadelphia, she persuaded department store pioneer John Wanamaker to carry the product.
After a fire destroyed the company’ s plant in 1883, Anna secured bank loans on reputation alone, enabling production to resume within 20 days. When Melville died unexpectedly in 1889, Anna— then in her early 40s and the mother of five children— stepped in to lead the company.
In the 19th century, widows often entered business out of necessity, but few excelled as Anna did. She didn’ t just maintain the company— she expanded it. One observer remarked that she“ studied
Headquarters of health care supply company Abbott in the Silicon Valley town of Santa Clara, California, July 25, 2017.
business the way other women of her time studied French.” She kept pace with industrial complexities and mastered every facet of production.
Most astutely, Anna recognized that the company’ s future depended on intellectual property and global branding. She trademarked the Bissell name in multiple countries and expanded the company’ s distribution into Europe and beyond, positioning Bissell as an international force. Under Anna’ s leadership, by 1900 Bissell became the world’ s largest manufacturer of carpet sweepers. She modernized the company’ s operations and insisted on progressive employee policies— benefits, pensions and safe working conditions. She introduced fixed work hours, annual leave, a pension plan and an early version of worker’ s compensation— virtually unheard of at the time. She knew that all of these measures were the right things to do and good for business.
Anna believed in merit-based advancement, promoting employees on skill and dedication regardless of gender— extraordinary in an era when women rarely held supervisory roles. At her death, newspapers called her“ a business executive without peer, a respected and beloved philanthropist and a true matriarch in her family.”
More than 140 years later, Bissell Inc. remains one of the world’ s largest manufacturers of floor care products. Anna wasn’ t trying to be“ the first woman CEO.” She was trying to build a great company— and in doing so, she made history.
Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans: Business Trailblazer
Letitia Pate Whitehead Evans( 1872 – 1953), business leader and philanthropist, was born in Bedford County, Virginia. Known as Lettie, she grew up in a nurturing family and attended private schools in Bedford and Lynchburg. In 1894, she married Joseph Brown Whitehead of Mississippi. The couple settled in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he practiced law, and they had two sons.
In 1899, Joseph Whitehead and fellow attorney Benjamin F. Thomas approached Asa Candler, president of The Coca-Cola Company, with what seemed a“ preposterous idea”— bottling Coca-Cola, then sold only at soda fountains. Candler granted them the exclusive rights to bottle and sell Coca-Cola across most of the United States. Improvements in bottling technology soon made the venture highly successful, and bottled soft drinks became a
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