Part 7
The pleasures of a visit to Europe are often as is the square of the distance from the time of the visit. With the passage of the years, oblivion overtakes the moments when we agonized over the question whether the fee expected by the guide was a shilling or a pound, and the hours when we gazed at the fireless grate; but with each recurring year the realities stand out with greater and growing vividness. Does not the flight of time bring to us all the realization that the real work of our hand is not the one that can be bought at the counter, but the unpurchasable illustrated edition?
THE WOMAN’S EXCHANGE[14]
Few persons whose attention is attracted by the modest sign of the Woman’s Exchange, now found in nearly all our large cities, realize that a new competitor has appeared in the industrial market. Few even of those who have assisted in organizing and carrying on such exchanges know that they have been instrumental in introducing a new factor into economic problems. Yet in spite of unpretentious rooms and unconcern as to economic questions, the Woman’s Exchange has already had an appreciable effect on economic conditions, and must in future play a still more important part.
The history of these organizations belongs, however, to a history of philanthropic work rather than to that of economics. The first Woman’s Exchange, the “Ladies’ Depository Association” of Philadelphia, established in 1833, was founded by persons “who labored earnestly to arouse in the community an interest in the hard and often bitter struggle to which educated, refined women are so frequently exposed when financial reverses compel them to rely upon their own exertions for a support.”[15] In its foundation and its management it was controlled entirely by philanthropic motives; it was to enable women “who had seen better days,” and suffered more from the prejudices of society in regard to woman’s work than from actual poverty, “to dispose of their work without being exposed to the often rough handling of shopkeepers, or to the then mortifying admission of their fancied humiliating condition.” The second exchange, the “New Brunswick, New Jersey, Ladies’ Depository,” founded in 1856, also was purely charitable in its motives, and it restricted its privileges to those who had been in affluent circumstances but were suddenly forced to become self-supporting. The first two exchanges were the product of a generation in which charities of every kind were largely regulated by sympathy alone, and it was twenty years before similar organizations were formed elsewhere. In 1878 the “New York Woman’s Exchange” was begun, and it added a new idea. Its aim was “beneficence, rather than charity,” and it undertook “to train women unaccustomed to work to compete with skilled laborers and those already trained, and to sell the result of their industries.”[16] It came at a time when the organization of charities was first being attempted, and the principle was being slowly evolved that the best way to help an individual is to help him to help himself. Its aim and its management show the influence of the present generation in its study of philanthropy as a social and economic question.
Since 1878, the year which may be taken as the beginning of the period of the Woman’s Exchange, nearly one hundred exchanges have been organized, all, with scarcely an exception, growing out of philanthropic motives, but philanthropy governed by the principles of the present day. The statement of the object of the exchange presented in their constitutions and annual reports will make this clear:
“The object of this Association shall be to aid women by helping them to help themselves; and in furtherance of this design, to maintain a depot for a reception and sale of woman’s work, or of articles in her possession, of which she may wish to dispose, subject to the approval of an examining committee.” Cincinnati, Ohio.
“As a means of providing a way for industrious and needy women to help themselves without neglecting their homes and families, it is indeed a charity that cannot be too highly estimated and is worthy of substantial support.” President’s Report, Decatur, Illinois, 1890.
“The prime object of the Woman’s Industrial Exchange of Minneapolis is: First--To assist women who must maintain themselves. Second--To assist girls or women to pursue a course of study as a means of support.” Fourth Annual Report, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1888.
“There are few charities that appeal more strongly to public sympathy than those whose aim is amelioration of the sufferings of women, for whom the struggle of life is beset by a thousand almost insurmountable difficulties.” San Francisco, California.
“The object of this Association shall be to maintain in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, a place for the reception, exhibition, and sale of articles, the product and manufacture of industrious women, and to assist by such means as may be found efficient to that end said women to turn to personal profit their talent and industry for earning an honest livelihood; to facilitate a sale of such articles as the women aforesaid may have or desire to dispose of; also generally to assist women in their efforts to earn an honest maintenance by their own industry, by and through such instrumentalities as the society may find conducive to that end.” Little Rock, Arkansas.
“In addition to the attainment of the chief object of the exchange, namely, assisting a needy woman to turn to personal profit whatever useful talent she may possess, it is also of some moment to have demonstrated the practicability and possibility of the work in other directions.” New Orleans, Louisiana, 1888.
“The exchange has, during the past year, been mainly supported by the exertions and untiring energy of the board of managers. The ladies in that way have demonstrated the Christian charity that fills the good woman’s heart when she is able to assist her sister woman.” President’s Report, Augusta, Georgia, 1891.
“The object of this society is to furnish a depository for the reception, exhibition, and sale of articles made by ladies attempting to support themselves.” Stamford, Connecticut.
“The Philadelphia Exchange for Woman’s Work is an institution formed by a number of women of Philadelphia for the purpose of helping women to help themselves.” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Circular of 1890.
“Among the number of charities which seem to be constantly increasing in our large city, we must again bring to the notice of its friends the Woman’s Work Exchange and Decorative Art Society of Brooklyn.” Annual Report, 1889.
The object of the Woman’s Exchange is thus seen to be charity, not charity pure and simple, but charity having a double end in view. The first and most important aim is the direction into remunerative channels of the work of “gentlewomen suddenly reduced to abject penury,” with the secondary aim of encouraging “the principle of self-help in the minds of girls and women, who in the future, if necessary, will be helpful and not helpless when misfortune comes.” In carrying out its object, the exchange receives under specified conditions all articles coming under the three general classes of domestic work, needle-work, and art-work.
The domestic department includes all forms of food that can be prepared by the consigners in their own homes and sold through the exchange. These articles form a dozen different classes and comprise more than two hundred and fifty varieties. They include every form of bread, pastry, cake, small cakes, cookies, cold meats, salads, soups, special and fancy desserts, preserves, jellies, jams, pickles, sauces, and delicacies for the sick.[17] In the department of needle-work nearly a hundred different articles are enumerated by the different exchanges, and the number is practically without limit, since it includes every form of plain and fancy sewing. The art department is for the special encouragement of decorative art, and its possibilities as well as actual achievements are very great. These three departments are found in all the exchanges, but each exchange, according to its locality and the consequent needs of the community, adds its own special line of work. A few receive scientific and literary work, others arrange for cleaning and mending lace, re-covering furniture, the care of fine bric-à-brac, writing and copying, the preparation of lunches for travelers and picnic parties, and a few take orders for shopping. All the exchanges have connected with them an order department, which is considered an especially satisfactory and remunerative part of their work.
In fulfilling its aim, the exchange thus enters as a competitor into the industrial field, though without consideration on its own part of this side of its work; and it is as an economic factor, rather than as a charitable organization, that it is considered in this chapter. The place it has already won in this field is shown by the fact that there are now in operation about seventy-five exchanges, a few in small places in thinly settled localities having been abandoned, and these are scattered through twenty-three states and the District of Columbia. A few of them are carried on by private enterprise, and make no public report, and several organizations have as yet made no statement of their financial condition. Sixty-six of them, however, receive work from nearly sixteen thousand consigners, to whom they paid last year, according to their last annual reports, a total amount of more than $400,000. The following table shows the amount paid consigners by the ten largest Exchanges:
New York Exchange for Woman’s Work, $51,000 Boston Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, 34,510 Cincinnati Woman’s Exchange, 26,992 San Francisco Woman’s Exchange, 23,372 Baltimore Woman’s Industrial Exchange, 15,500 Philadelphia Exchange for Woman’s Work, 14,562 Columbus Woman’s Exchange, 13,000 Minneapolis Woman’s Industrial Exchange, 12,791 Topeka Ladies’ Exchange, 10,000 Milwaukee Woman’s Industrial Exchange, 9,824
It is of interest also to note the total amount paid to consigners by different exchanges since their organization.
The following table will show this:
New York Exchange for Woman’s Work (12 years), $417,435 Cincinnati Women’s Exchange (8 years), 175,130 New Orleans Christian Woman’s Exchange (10 years), 173,223 Boston Woman’s Educational and Industrial Union (6 years), 148,588 St. Louis Woman’s Exchange (8 years), 55,000 San Francisco Woman’s Exchange (5 years), 50,000 Rhode Island (Providence) Exchange for Woman’s Work (10 years), 48,469 Richmond (Va.) Exchange for Woman’s Work (7 years), 27,324 St. Joseph (Mo.) Exchange for Woman’s Work (6 years), 19,233
The Woman’s Exchange regarded as an economic factor must be considered in three aspects: (1) As a business enterprise; (2) from the point of view of the producer; (3) from the standpoint of the consumer.
Viewed purely as a business enterprise, the exchange is a failure. Having charity to a particular class as its object pure and simple, no other result could be expected. Aside from the few private exchanges that have been started as business ventures, but two or three are self-supporting. That at New Orleans has been self-supporting from its organization, and it has been one of the best organized and most successful of all the associations. Some of the organizations go so far as to say that self-support has never been an object with them.[18] In the great majority of the exchanges a commission of ten per cent is charged on all goods sold, but this sum is inadequate to meet current expenses. The exchange, therefore, relies for its support upon private contributions and the ordinary means adopted by other benevolent organizations for increasing their revenues.
The treasurers’ reports show that part of the funds at command have been derived from charity balls, calico balls, rose shows, chrysanthemum shows, flower festivals, baseball benefits, picnics, excursions, concerts, bazars, lectures, readings, Valentine’s Day cotillon suppers, concert suppers, club entertainments, carnivals, kermesses, sale of cook-books, flower-seeds, and Jenness-Miller goods, and in some instances from raffles.
This fact alone separates the exchange from other business enterprises. Having no capital to invest, it must pursue a hand-to-mouth policy, and employ means for increasing its resources which would never be considered by other business houses. In a few cases where exchanges own their buildings and sublet parts of them, or where they are able to maintain a profitable lunch department, it is possible more nearly to make both ends meet. Under other circumstances the exchange becomes poorer as its business increases, and there is a fresh demand for subscriptions and entertainments to meet current expenses. It is true that the exchange does not wish to be considered a business enterprise and be judged by ordinary business rules, but the fact that it enters the business field as a competitor with other enterprises makes it inevitable that it be judged as a business house, and not as a charitable organization. The persistence with which different exchanges iterate and reiterate the statement that their object is charity “to needy gentlewomen,” and not financial return, is evidence of a consciousness of their present ambiguous position. As long as the exchange undertakes business activities, it cannot escape judgment by business principles.
The exchange has from the first hampered itself with many hard and pernicious conditions. The requirement is universal that all consignments shall be made by women. Valuable industrial competition is thus shut out, and the exclusion of men from the exchange is as unreasonable as the exclusion of women from competition in other occupations. There are many household articles, the product of inventive and artistic talent, which are the handiwork of men and should find place in the exchange.
The second restriction found in the majority of exchanges is that no consignments shall be received except from women who state that they are dependent for entire or partial support on the sale of the articles offered. Some of the early exchanges made at first the additional requirement that the work offered should be by women who had formerly been in affluent circumstances but were rendered self-supporting by changes of circumstances. The latter requirement has now been abolished, and in a few of the more recently organized exchanges, especially in the exchange departments of the Woman’s Educational and Industrial Unions, the requirement of the necessity of self-support has been abandoned. Some exchanges also modify this condition so far as to state that all the proceeds of sales made for those not dependent on their own exertions for support must be appropriated to charitable purposes, and at least one exchange apologizes for accepting articles from young girls who had the necessaries, though not the luxuries, of life, on the ground that since these girls give the results of their work to charity, the exchange is teaching them a valuable lesson.
The principle is a pernicious one, and is never recognized in other enterprises. Just as long as society asks concerning any article “Does the maker need money?” and not “Is it the best that can be made for the price?” just so long a premium is put on mediocre work. It is a question never asked in other kinds of business; the best article is sought, regardless of personal considerations, and it is at least an open question whether in the end the interests of the individuals to be benefited by employment are not thus best served. If the same principle were applied to the legal and medical professions, society would be deprived of the services of many whose help is necessary for the preservation of its best interests. The application of the same principle elsewhere would cause every producer to withdraw from the industrial field as soon as he had gained a competence. The result would often be that as soon as an individual had reached great skill in producing an article, he would be forced to step aside and yield his place to others.
Moreover, society has a right to demand the best that every individual can give it; and just as long as the exchange persistently denies itself and its patrons the benefit of the best work wherever it is found, regardless of money considerations, just so long it will fail to secure the best economic results. It does not indeed concern itself with these results, but it cannot thereby escape them.
But aside from the injurious economic effects in thus limiting production, it places the whole idea of work on a wrong basis. It assumes that work for women is a misfortune, not the birthright inheritance of every individual, and that therefore they are to work for remuneration only when compelled by dire necessity. Moreover, every individual has the same right to work that he has to life itself, and to shut out the rich and the well-to-do from the privilege is as unfair to the individual as it is to society. Indeed, it may be assumed that the members of this class are, as a rule, better qualified for work than are other classes, since wealth has brought opportunities in the direction of education and special training, and society loses in the same proportion as it deprives itself of their services. It is true also that the higher the standard set in any department of work, the greater the improvement in the work of all workers in the same field.
But not only does the exchange deprive itself of positive good in thus refusing to accept the best wherever it is found, regardless of money considerations--it puts upon itself the positive burden of enforcing a questionable condition. “Necessity for self-support” is a relative term; and when the responsibility of the decision is put on the consigner, the danger is incurred on the one side of shutting out from the privilege of the exchange many who are unduly conscientious, and on the other side of encouraging deceit in regard to their necessities on the part of the less scrupulous. The exchange must be ever on the alert to guard against imposition and fraud; and however much it may disclaim the idea, it must to a certain extent make itself the judge of its consigners’ necessities. When this alternative is forced upon it, it must perform a task difficult in proportion to its delicacy, and one that would be resented in the business world as an unwarranted intrusion into private affairs.[19] The exchange by the use of these methods prejudices itself in a business way in the eyes of many who would be valuable consigners.
A third restriction that has fettered the exchange has been the geographical limitation imposed by many organizations. Many receive no consignments from outside the state, some New England exchanges limit consignments to that section, a few restrict consignments to residents of the city, and others, while having consigners in all parts of the country, congratulate themselves, as does one association, that “two thirds of the proportion of money paid out goes to the ladies of this city.” Still another exchange, on the Pacific coast, complains bitterly of the fact that articles have been sent to it by persons outside the state, and not dependent on their own labors for support, “but who would speculate upon the charitable spirit of the public,” and its president’s report recommends that it “prohibit exhibits from the East altogether.” This restriction undoubtedly grows out of the idea that the exchange is a dispenser of charity and should therefore aid first its own friends and neighbors. It is a spirit akin to that which in mediæval and even in modern times has resented the entrance of new workers into any occupation or community. But it must again be insisted that while the exchange is theoretically only a benevolent association, it is practically a business house, and as such must be judged by business principles. The most successful business firm that should adopt the policy of purchasing its supplies only within the state or city would soon find its trade decreasing, while for a new house to adopt the policy would be suicidal. Even the present high protective tariff is not so absolutely prohibitory as is this provision of many of the exchanges. Aside from other disadvantages, the plan prevents the infusion of new ideas so necessary to healthy growth, and it renders almost impossible that market criticism which secures the best industrial results. It is in distinct violation of that principle of commercial comity between states which led the framers of the Constitution to prohibit both import and export duties on all goods exchanged between the states, and to that extent is out of harmony with the recognized policy of the country regarding interstate exchange of commodities.
A fourth economic difficulty is the fact that the exchange has no capital. It does simply a commission business, and it is a recipient of whatever goods are sent it which reach a certain standard; its attitude is therefore negative rather than positive. Its consigners are obliged to purchase their own materials in small quantities in retail markets, and therefore to place a higher price on their articles than would be the case could the materials be purchased by or through a central office. This lack of capital and its passive attitude prevent the exchange from keeping its finger on the pulse of the market; there is no connection between supply and demand, and no way of establishing such connection. This difficulty, which is encountered in all business enterprises, is multiplied by the number of the consigners. The exchange refuses to accept articles if they do not reach a fixed standard, but not because the market is glutted. The loss accruing from an overstocked market, it is true, falls immediately on the consigners rather than on the exchange, but the exchange suffers directly through the loss of the commission retained on all goods sold, and indirectly in acquiring the reputation as a business house of keeping in stock articles not in demand and of failing to supply the market with others that are.