Sartain Lanier was born in 1909 in Winchester, Tennessee. His father was John Hicks Lanier and his mother, Nettie Sartain. He had two brothers, Hicks and Thomas, and a sister, Eleanor. He grew up in Nashville, Tennessee from the age of 5. Lanier was educated at Hume Fogg High School. He graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1931.
Business career
Lanier and his brothers co-founded the Lanier Company in Nashville in 1934. It was later renamed Lanier Business Products. The firm initially sold the Ediphone, a phonograph cylinder made by Thomas A. Edison, Inc., and later machines used in offices. By 1976, the company was criticized for incurring the 1973–75 recession as their products led to a lesser need for secretarial employees and thus higher unemployment. However, Lanier retorted that businesses had become more profitable thanks to those products. The company was acquired by the Harris Corporation in 1983, and by Ricoh in 2000, where it became a subsidiary known as Lanier Worldwide. In 1942, in the midst of World War II, Lanier and his brothers acquired 50% of the Oxford Manufacturing Company, a textile concern of uniforms for the United States Army headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Lanier served as its chairman and chief executive officer. He expanded the business to men's and women's apparel, and renamed it Oxford Industries. In 1958, the Lanier brothers acquired the Freezer Shirt Corporation of Gaffney, South Carolina. In 1963, the Oxford Company was listed as a public company on the New YorkStock Exchange, with an annual revenue of US$60 million, 6,000 employees, 20 factories, 10 warehouses, and facilities in New York City. By 1968, the Gaffney subsidiary was known as the Carolina Apparel Co. That same year, the company reported record sales and profits. Also in 1968, after his brother Thomas died, both Sartain and his brother J. Hicks inherited his shares from Lanier Properties, the warehouse company for Oxford Industries; those shares were acquired by the company. By 1971, Sartain predicted that men were unlikely to return to wearing "the grey flannel suit and the conservative tie", preferring to wear colors and special fabrics. Lanier served on the Boards of Directors of Standard Brands, the Trust Company of Georgia, the Genuine Parts Company, and Southern Airways.
Civic activities
Lanier established the Sartain Lanier Family Foundation, a philanthropic family foundation. He served on the board of trust of his alma mater, Vanderbilt University, for thirty years. He also endowed the Lanier Scholarships, three scholarships given to high school graduates from Atlanta to attend Vanderbilt University for free for the entire four years of their college careers.
