SPECIAL POST: The History of Dover Handbags - With Input From The Son of The Founder

Red faux leather Dover bag from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

The History of Dover Handbags

The Vintage Purse Museum has a number of Dover and Dova (an upmarket brand made by Dover) handbags in our collection, so we began researching the company's history a while back. One of the most interesting things we discovered was the existence of a Facebook page devoted to Netcong, the city in New Jersey in which one of the Dover factories was located. A page member's post asked if anyone remembered the handbag factory, and the responses were astounding. Many generations of local families had been a part of Dover's workforce, which produced countless handbags in all sorts of styles over decades.

We made a note of this, then set it aside, knowing we would eventually write about this company and its production of affordable, yet durable handbags. The impetus to return to our research came when we acquired a seemingly unrelated handbag that had as its logo the silhouette of Abraham Lincoln. By searching the invaluable website of our lovely friend the Bag Lady—we saw that this was the logo of Lincoln Leather Goods Co., of which Harold Sporn was president. Upon further research, we learned that Mr. Sporn later became the founder of Dover Handbag Co., Inc. 

So we reached out via email to Harold Sporn's son, Eric Sporn, who graciously filled us in on much of the history of Dover. Below is our research from our usual sources, which include a genealogy website and a newspaper archive, along with Eric Sporn's answers to our email questions (lightly edited).

Harold Sporn was born in Austria in 1906 to Solomon Sporn and Eva Beer Sporn. According to Eric, his grandparents divorced, and Solomon moved to Paris. It's unclear if Harold came to the US with his mother Eva and his older sister Sadie, but according to Harold's US naturalization documents, he arrived in New York in 1920 at age 14. He applied for US citizenship in 1929 and became a US citizen in 1932. (One record indicates that Sadie came to the US in 1913 at age 10, presumably with her mother, but we could not verify the accuracy of this information as it was user-submitted to the genealogy website, and not on an official document.)

Eva married Isak (Isaac) Gruber, who had a son from a previous marriage. The couple then had two more sons. According to the 1930 US Census, Eva was widowed, and she and her three sons and daughter were living together in Rockaway, New York. Harold was 24 and listed as a “pocketbook manufacturer.” 

"My father came to this country as a teenager and had no formal education," said Eric. "I doubt he finished grade school. He worked in a luggage store in New York City and that is how he became familiar with handbags."

In 1940, Harold married Sylvia Presser (1918-1993) in Manhattan. They had two children, Judith and Eric. 

"My parents were married on Christmas as this was the only day my father did not work," Eric said. "His first love was his business and after that his family. He almost never went on a vacation. I can think of only two times we went away as a family." 

The Vintage Purse Museum found a 1926 announcement of the establishment of Lincoln Leather Goods Co. The partners were Harold Sporn, William Hirschhorn, Frank Devan, and Morris Edelstein.

1940s suede bag by Lincoln Leather Goods. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Abraham Lincoln logo inside bag above.

"These were my father's cousins," Eric told us. "They produced handbags in New York City, and my father would deliver merchandise to customers on the subway. They eventually moved to Gloversville, New York, and much later (cousin) Morris moved to St. Louis and worked in handbags. In the '70s, my father gave Morris a job at one of our factories in New Jersey."

The most recent year that The Vintage Purse Museum could find a reference to Lincoln Leather Goods Co. was 1957. It appears that Harold Sporn had left Lincoln Leather by about 1951, but his company, Dover, was established around 1948. 

Ad for Lincoln Leather Goods handbag, September 25, 1949, clipped via Newspapers.com.

"During WWII, they converted the (Lincoln Leather) factory and produced gloves for the US Army, and my father traveled to Washington, D.C. to negotiate contracts," said Eric. "My understanding was that all the cousins except my father had other outside businesses that they had invested in after the war. My father was the salesman for the company and left to start his own business since he had no outside interests and there was a lot of friction. Harold was expected to fail since he was a salesman, and Lincoln would survive; however, the opposite happened. He started a small factory in Netcong, New Jersey, and employed his half brothers to run the factory."

We asked Eric if there was a designer at the factory and if he knew how many employees worked there at its peak. 

"There was no 'designer,' he said. "We had a pattern maker, and basically we copied far more expensive handbags and sold to the mass merchants: WT Grant, Montgomery Ward, Sears and Roebuck, JCPenney, E.J. Korvette, many, many small mom & pop retailers, Gimbels, Macy's, and Kmart. We eventually employed almost 800 workers in Netcong, New Jersey, and we opened another factory in Lodi, New Jersey for the 'better' Dova line, with about 200 workers. We employed most of Netcong. We had to be the largest employer by far. I understood we employed the mayor at one time." 

Like many handbag companies of the era, Dover utilized a variety of fabrics, and came up with semi-eponymous names for them based on their textures. This included Dova-Suede, Dova-Mesh, Dova Disc, Dova-Rama, and Dova-Net. Many of these fabrics were plastics that were marketed as washable, a very desirable attribute for post-war consumers.

Dover's Dova-Suede bag with its original tag. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

December 21, 1959, the Hickory Daily Record, clipped via Newspapers.com.

Dover's model #05 bag, which looked like a doctor's satchel, was so popular, said Eric, that it paid for his education. 

"We kept a daily toll of production. The highest we ever did was about 100 gross (144 is a gross) per day. The '05' had a dedicated production line that produced about 25 gross daily," he explained. "Under my father, Dover basically produced 'frame' handbags. This means the closure was a faux gold plated metal frame. There are many types of frames and the framer was considered the highest skilled and best paid worker."

Tapestry bag by Dover. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

March 23, 1967, The Herald Sun, clipped via Newspapers.com.

"The labor content of a frame bag versus an envelope style was somewhat less. An envelope with a turn lock closure and flap required more gluing, turned edges and sewing. I believe my father's negotiating skills buying these frames contributed greatly to our success," said Eric. "When the trend became more casual with the onset of jeans, framed bags were considered more dressy. It became a real challenge to make framed handbags appear casual. My father would tell our customers that our handbags were 'dressy-casual.' I think he made up that phrase."

We were curious about whether or not Dover wholesaled its bags, or if there was a possible collaboration between Dover and at least one other handbag company, Caron of Houston, maker of distinctively decorated bags. We asked because we have two of these handbags—one with Dover's Dova imprint and Caron label, and another with just the Dover imprint. We assume that the second bag used to have the Caron label. Caron glued its labels to its handbags, so they often peeled off over time.

Eric explained to us that it wasn't a collaboration, but that Caron of Houston was a customer that purchased handbags from Dover to decorate them. As many of our handbag history theories go unanswered due to the passage of time, we were delighted that Eric could solve this mystery for us.

Handbag by Dover under its Dova imprint, decorated by Caron of Houston. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Labels inside bag above.

Handbag with just the Dover imprint, but more than likely decorated and retailed by Caron, which was a wholesale customer of Dover's. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

We asked Eric if he would share some personal memories of his parents and their work.  

"My mother originally worked for him in the gluing department and eventually in the office," said Eric. "The irony is that my uncles (my father's half brothers) both went to college and eventually ended up working for him with no education. My father is a prime example of someone with no education who was very street smart. Our success during his reign was greatly due to his negotiating skill. He was the purchaser of almost every component of the product and there was never a better buyer. I recall once the suppliers boycotted him because of his negotiating but eventually all came back."  

Dova handbag with silvertone faux chain link metal frame. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Because The Vintage Purse Museum has written many articles about midcentury handbag makers, we were aware that everyone knew practically everyone else in the industry. We asked Eric if he remembered any of his father's colleagues.

"The owner of Lesco Lona, Leo Sternberg, lived in Larchmont, so we knew him and his family. We knew most manufacturers because there was an association that we bargained together with the union every few years. My father joined this association for only that reason. There was also a UJA dinner once a year for the industry where we met. The large handbag companies were: Aetna (Jaclyn), Ola, Henry Richards, Licht & Kaplan/Regal Bag (sold handbags to Woolworth), Morris White, Julius Resnick, Mutterperl, Margolin, Spilene/Stone Mountain (and more)."

Harold Sporn passed away in 1976, and Eric Sporn became president of Dover at 33-years-old.

Dover white faux leather bag, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

"The handbag industry started to change into imports a few years earlier with straw baskets replacing the 'white' handbag business for spring/summer," said Eric. "I was one of the last domestic manufacturers to close their doors. We survived somewhat longer by making mostly clutches that had less labor content, and by innovation with style. We had many individual styles that sold extremely well. Eventually no one could compete with Asia and a few of the domestic handbag manufacturers closed and went to Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, and eventually China. We converted to leather and top zip clutches to stay competitive with Asia."

The Vintage Purse Museum wrote an article about the catastrophic effects on the US handbag industry due to the 1964-1967 "Kennedy Round" of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which made it cheaper to import handbags rather than make them in-house. This led to the reduction of staff or complete closure of numerous US manufacturers by the early 1970s. The fact that Dover kept going for another two decades is remarkable. 

Dover Hug-A-Pet backpack, December 4, 1985, The News and Advance, clipped via Newspapers.com.

"We were importers for several years and had a few good years," said Eric. "In the early '90s, we had the 'Hug-a-Pet,' which was a stuffed plush animal that was also a backpack. We sold the entire world this item. Soon we had the Disney license and this was extraordinary. But nothing lasts forever. I sold our business in an asset sale to British conglomerate Hartstone Holdings, but they failed also. A year or so after our business closed I started a backpack company and was moderately successful." 

The Vintage Purse Museum found a 1991 newspaper article announcing Hartstone's acquisition of Dover handbags. The most recent newspaper advertisement we could find for Dover bags was from 1994. Dover's Netcong factory on Flanders Rd. and Route 46 was eventually torn down, and there is now an apartment complex on the property.

Eric's mother Sylvia Sporn passed away in 1993. Her obituary said that she had retired from Dover two years prior. The rabbi of the synagogue that the Sporns helped to establish spoke very highly of Harold and Sylvia, and said that she was a great lady, and that the two of them were good people.

We asked Eric if he retired after Dover closed, or if he moved on to another business. Eric Sporn stayed in the industry, and went to work for Mundi Westport Group. 

"The irony is that the owner of this company, Richard Florin (now 95-years-old) had a small sales office on 10 W. 33rd Street, 11th floor, directly opposite our much larger sales office in the '90s. I got to know him then and he also lived close to me in our community in New Jersey," said Eric. "I was welcomed (at Mundi Westport) since I knew all aspects of the business from sales, manufacturing design and importing. They have the license now for Timberland, Nautica, Jessica McClintock, and many private labels. We have had a wonderful relationship together and I am employed here over 27 years and still working at 81!"  

While Eric said that he prioritizes things a bit differently than his father, he agrees that working into his 80s is a sign that Harold's ethic affected him in a positive way. Both father and son's longtime careers in the handbag business reflect resilience, tenacity, and the ability to evolve.

Special thanks to Eric Sporn for his kindness and invaluable information. Resources used were MyHeritage.com and Newspapers.com, to which we have paid subscriptions. Other resources used were Google, FamilySearch.org, and Bagladyemporium.com. This article c2026 by Wendy Dager/The Vintage Purse Museum. Please do not use photos or information from our website without requesting permission, vintagepursemuseum@gmail.com.