Dell Williams

Dell Williams (née Zetlin; August 5, 1922 – March 11, 2015) was an American businesswoman and advocate of women's liberation, sexuality, and sexual health. She was the founder (in 1974) of the first feminist sex toy business in the U.S., Eve's Garden, in New York City. It was the first woman-owned and woman-operated sex toy business in America.

Career In 1945, she enlisted in the Women's Army Corps. In 1974, she founded the first feminist sex toy business in the U.S., Eve's Garden, in New York City.

She was inspired to found the business after she took a “Body/Sex Workshop” by Betty Dodson in New York and afterwards went to buy a Hitachi Magic Wand for use as a vibrator, but found that the salesboy at Macy's asked her a nosy question about it. Williams also attributed the founding of the store to having read Wilhelm Reich's The Function of the Orgasm in her early twenties.

Williams was an actress for a time and appeared in productions of The Vagina Monologues.

Williams died in Manhattan on March 11, 2015, age 92.