Elsa Barsaloux first appears in print, so far as I can tell, in 1915, with both The Priscilla Baby Book no.1 and Utopia Book of Filet and Venetian Crochet, no.2. A veritable spate of books followed in the next few years, some of crochet but mostly knitting.
She had been born in Germany in 1875, and immigrated with her parents and younger sister in the early 1880s, settling probably in the Bronx, and married David Barsaloux around 1897. He had been born in Colorado also to immigrant parents -- his father from Canada and his mother from Ireland -- and by the time of the 1900 and 1905 censuses, the young couple was living in the Bronx with Elsa's widowed mother, David working as a cashier in a hotel. Elsa sold design models to several major department stores, and made her first foray into knitting pattern books in 1915; these first books were mostly published by various yarn companies, but towards the end of the Great War the Barsalouxs had opened their own company and were publishing under their own imprint. Although 1917 was her glory year -- with at least six pattern books published -- five more were published in the next few years, but sadly Elsa died at the age of 49 in 1924, and David just four years later.
This article from the "Dry Goods Economist" highlights a Barsaloux innovation -- "the newest thing in the way of a retail store ... a shop devoted exclusively to yarns". As hard to imagine as that is nowadays, in 1917 there was no such thing as a bricks-and-mortar yarn shop! Mrs. Barsaloux's establishment -- The Yarn Shop, mind you!-- was located at 400 5th Avenue (where the Langham Hotel is now), was tastefully decorated in up-to-the-moment gray and lavender, and included tables and comfortable chairs "for those who are receiving instructions," and, with an admirable knowledge of her prospective clientele, a children's room with child-sized tables and chairs!
The Yarn Shop, close up.
Pattern books by Elsa Schappel Barsaloux
1915
1916
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Richardson's cross stitch book and filet crochet no.5 (Richardson Silk Co.)*
- Richardson's silk and cotton crochet book no. 11
- Utopia book of Cluny crochet (Henry E. Frankenberg)
*According to Leigh Martin, Richardson's didn't publish the names of the designers, so it's interesting that Barsaloux's is known -- perhaps she insisted on it?
1917
1918
- The sweater book (The Yarn Shop/David N. Barsaloux)
1919
1920
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The Priscilla Cluny crochet book
1921
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Sweater styles : original model creations and designs (The Yarn Shop)
Sources
New York, New York City marriage records, 1829-1940 (database).
New York, New York City municipal deaths, 1795-1949 (database).
"Sells yarn exclusively," in Dry Goods Economist, vol.72, no.3836, January 12, 1918, p.59 (bound in issues 3835-3845).
Polk's New York City directory,
1920-1921 ["Barsaloux, Elsa yarns 500 5th ave" on p.283],
1922-1923
United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 (database).
