Dorothy Norton

1900 - 1989

Dorothy Norton was born in Manchester, Massachusetts, to Charles L. and Frances Norton. She graduated from Pierce Secretarial School in Boston in 1920, studied design and interior decorating at the Amy M. Sacker School of Design in Boston and microscopic anatomy at the Harvard Medical School. She worked as a secretary for her father at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1918 to 1919 and at the Amy M. Sacker School of Design in 1924. She taught at the school from 1925 to 1926. From 1930 to 1932, Dorothy worked as a volunteer medical illustrator at Massachusetts General Hospital and as an interior decorator from 1932 to 1942. She also worked as an assistant to Clarence Birdseye at his laboratory in Gloucester for three months in 1943. She took drawing lessons from George Demetrios for two years. In 1944, Dorothy was hired as the Folly Cove Designers’ executive secretary. She was also a designer and remained with the group until it disbanded.