Part 8

The exchange as a business enterprise is also open to other criticisms. It is not self-supporting, and therefore gives a partial support to women who have come into competition with women not receiving the assistance of the exchange. The well-meant charity is thus instrumental in keeping at a low rate the earnings of women who do not receive such partial support. Many women are too much the victims of prejudice and false pride to come out openly as wage-earners, and to these the exchange gives its assistance, to the disadvantage of those who struggle on unaided by it. It has employed “gentlewomen” in its salaried positions, and by this restriction practically carried out, though not embodied in its rules, it has deprived itself of the services of some who would have been of valuable assistance through the business experience and executive ability they could have brought to bear on this work. It has required that all its consigners shall be known by number and not by name, thus allying itself, as regards one custom, with penal and reformatory institutions. The exchange by its limitations has encouraged the idea that women can work by stealth without being guilty of moral cowardice, and it has fostered the spirit that carries lunches in music-rolls, calls for laundry-work only after dark, and does not receive as boarders or lodgers wage-earning women. It has countenanced a fictitious social aristocracy by referring so uniformly to its consigners as “needy gentlewomen.” It has said in effect, “work for remuneration is honorable for all men; work for remuneration is honorable for women only when necessity compels it.”

But while the exchange is open to serious criticism from a business point of view, it has accomplished much and has in it still greater possibilities. It has set a high standard for work, and insisted that this standard should be reached by every consigner not only once or generally, but invariably. It has maintained this standard in the face of hostile criticism and the feeling that a charitable organization ought to accept poor work if those presenting it are in need of money. It has shown that success in work cannot be attained by a simple desire for it or need of it pecuniarily. It has taught that accuracy, scientific knowledge, artistic training, habits of observation, good judgment, courage and perseverance are better staffs in reaching success than reliance upon haphazard methods and the compliments of flattering friends. It has raised the standard of decorative and artistic needle-work by incorporating into its rules a refusal to accept calico patchwork, wax, leather, hair, feather rice, spatter, splinter, and cardboard work.

It has taught many women that a model recipe for cake is not “A few eggs, a little milk, a lump of butter, a pinch of salt, sweetening to taste, flour enough to thicken; give a good beating and bake according to judgment.” More than all this, it has pointed out to women a means of support that can be carried on within their own homes, and is perfectly compatible with other work necessarily performed there. It has in effect opened up a new occupation to women, in that it has taught them that their accomplishments may become of pecuniary value, and a talent for the more prosaic domestic duties be turned into a fine art and made remunerative. It has enabled many women who have a taste for household employments in their various forms to take up such occupations as a business, when they would otherwise have drifted into other occupations for which they have had no inclination. The exchange thus assumes a not unimportant place in the history of woman’s occupations. The factory system of manufactures transferred the labor of many women from the home of the producer to the business establishment of a corporation. The anti-slavery agitation and the founding of Mount Holyoke Seminary and Oberlin College gave women a more prominent place as teachers and in the professions. The Civil War opened the doors of mercantile pursuits. It has been through the Woman’s Exchange that women have been taught that a means of support lies open to them at their own doors; and thus the exchange has done something to relieve the pressure in over-crowded occupations.

The advantage that has been taken of this new idea is widespread. The sixteen thousand consigners on the books of the exchange are but a part of the still larger number of women who are turning to practical advantage their tastes for sewing and cooking in all of their various forms. Before the opening of the exchange, as still, indeed, women seeking remunerative employment were forced to go into one of the four great occupations open to women--work in factories, teaching, domestic service, and work in shops. But it has been impossible for all women desiring occupation to find it in these four great classes of employment. Many desire employment, but are forced to carry it on in their own homes; others have no taste whatever for any of the lines of work mentioned; and conditions under which many kinds of work are performed render other occupations obnoxious to others; still others prefer work which gives greater opportunity for the exercise of individual taste and ingenuity than do some of these occupations. Such women have found through the exchange a means of support and opportunity for work which they could not find elsewhere. They are learning that society is coming to respect more the woman who supports herself by making good bread, cakes, and preserves than the woman who teaches school indifferently, gives poor elocutionary performances, or becomes a mere mechanical contrivance in a shop or factory. They are finding that the stamp of approval is ultimately to be put on the way work is done rather than on the occupation itself. Thus it is that hundreds of women from Maine to Texas and California are obtaining for themselves and others partial or entire support by making and offering for sale, either through business houses or private orders, cake, bread, preserved fruit, salads, desserts, and an innumerable number of special articles, in addition to the products of artistic needle-work and decorative art-work. Not only are these articles found in the large cities, but in country villages many women are engaged in such work and often find a ready sale for it without the trouble and expense of sending it to the city markets. In one village of only five hundred inhabitants one young woman makes and sells daily thirty loaves of bread. In a small Eastern village another bakes and sells daily from thirty to a hundred loaves of bread according to the season, and cake and pastry in the same proportion.

The demand for work of this kind is as yet limited, and therefore the net profits are in most cases small; yet in some instances a fair competence has been secured. One person in a country town has made a hand-some living by making chicken salad which has been sold in New York City. Another has cleared four hundred dollars each season by making preserves and jellies on private orders. A third has built up a large business, employing from three to five assistants, in making cake. Still another, living near a Southern city, has built up “an exceedingly remunerative business” by selling to city grocers pickles, preserves, cakes and pies. One cause given for her success has been the fact that “she has allowed no imperfect goods to be sold; everything has been the best, whether she has gained or lost on it.” A fifth has netted one thousand dollars a year by preparing mince-meat and making pies of every description; and a sixth has, with the assistance of two daughters, netted yearly one thousand five hundred dollars above all expenses, except rent, in preparing fancy lunch dishes on shortest notice and dishes for invalids. Still one more began by borrowing a barrel of flour, and now has a salesroom where she sells daily from eighty to a hundred dozen Parker House rolls, in addition to bread made in every conceivable way, from every kind of grain. More moderate incomes are made by others in putting up pure fruit juices and shrubs, in preparing fresh sweet herbs, in making Saratoga potatoes, and consommé in the form of jelly ready to melt and serve. So successful have been these ventures that some of those engaging in them have acquired not only a financial profit, but a wide reputation for the superiority of their goods. In some instances the articles made are included in the catalogue of goods sold by the leading dealers in fine groceries in New York City.

These illustrations have been taken from the single department of domestic work; similar ones could be given from the class of plain and fancy needle-work and decorative art work. Surely it is better for the individual and better for society that these persons should turn to useful account their various talents, rather than attempt to enter many of the overcrowded occupations and do work for which they have neither talent nor inclination.

But not only is the exchange directly and indirectly of value to producers, it is of equal importance to consumers. It simplifies many housekeeping problems in families where there is more work than can be performed by one domestic employee and not enough for two, by making it possible to purchase for the table and other household purposes many articles made out of the house of the consumer. In a similar way it is of assistance in all families who do “light housekeeping.” It also enables them to purchase articles ready for use which have been made under the most favorable conditions. A specific example of this is seen in the preparation of fruit for winter use. This is at present done in the family of each consumer, but the canning in cities, by individual families, of fruit, often in an over-ripe or a half-ripe condition, is as anomalous as would be the making to-day of dairy products in the same localities. The canning factory has come into existence to meet the demand, but the canning factory cannot meet the needs of private families, since the great perfection as regards results is secured only when articles are handled in small quantities. If all fruits could be preserved in the localities where they are produced, the consumer would gain not only in securing a better article than can now be produced after shipment, but the cost would ultimately be lessened, since fruit could be thus preserved at less expense than when it is shipped to cities and there sold at a price including cost of transportation and high rents. Ripe fruit demands the most speedy and therefore the most expensive modes of transportation; preserved fruits can be shipped at leisure, by inexpensive methods. The consumer must also be indirectly benefited as well as the producer, from the fact that such a policy would prevent a glut in the market of such perishable articles and the consequent discouragement on the part of the producer, sometimes ending in a resolution to grow no more fruit for market, owing to the loss entailed. What is true of the purchase of fruit thus prepared is true also of numerous other articles. Scores of articles such as boned turkey, calf’s-foot jelly, chicken jelly, chicken broth, chicken croquettes and chicken salad, pressed veal, mince-meat, bouillon, plum pudding and many miscellaneous articles could be thus produced under more advantageous conditions than at present. Moreover, many abandoned farms could be utilized as fruit farms, or for other purposes, which are now too remote from shipping centres to permit the transportation of ripe fruit, but could be made of use through the exchange.

Another advantage gained by the consumers is that they are thus able to take advantage of specialized labor. This, again, is evident in the domestic department. The consumer is usually obliged to depend on the skill of a single cook or baker, while through the exchange the works of many producers are placed side by side in competition, and thus in the end the highest standard is secured. For both producer and consumer, therefore, the exchange is of advantage in thus affording an avenue for specialized work. It thus makes possible to a certain extent the division of labor which has been but partially accomplished in the household.

Another field of work open to the exchange is in becoming a medium for the exchange of workers as well as of work--of affording a means of communication between workers in different lines or between the producer and consumer. Very much of the work now done in the house by those living there could be done to better advantage by those coming in from outside. Special skill in arranging rooms, hanging pictures, preparing for lunches, teas, or other social entertainments, repairing furniture and wardrobes, fine laundry-work, special table-service, etc., could be performed for housekeepers by those who retain their own homes and yet are able and anxious to give a few hours daily to outside work. The exchange, through a bureau of information, could accomplish much for both those wishing work and those wishing workers, as well as in a business way for itself. In many ways, it is thus seen, the exchange is in harmony with the economic and industrial development of the time. As far as this is true it has in it the elements of permanence. Wherever it runs at right angles to present economic tendencies, it must be open to criticism and also contain in itself the germs of subsequent failure.

If all idea of charity _per se_ could be eliminated from the exchange, if the word “gentlewoman” could be dropped from the pages of its reports, the by-law limiting consigners to self-supporting women stricken out, its consigners known by name instead of by number, and the idea abandoned that it is to help women to help themselves only “when misfortune comes;” if it could cease to be supported by donations, kermesses, charity balls, and miscellaneous entertainments; if it could refuse to constitute itself a judge of its consigners’ necessities; if the name could be changed to Household Exchange, or one signifying the character of the goods sold rather than the nature of the makers; if, in other words, the Woman’s Exchange could be put on a purely business basis and become self-supporting, it would cease to be what it now is, “a palliative for the ills of the few,” and become what it aims to be, “a curative for the sufferings of the many.”

FOOTNOTES:

[14] This article was first published in _The Forum_, May, 1892. It is now republished without alteration from the original manuscript. In the intervening years some exchanges then existing have been abandoned, and new ones have been organized, but a somewhat careful inquiry has disclosed no essential modifications of the principles for which the Woman’s Exchange stood in 1892. The conclusions reached at that time therefore remain unchanged.

[15] Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Ladies’ Depository Association for 1890.

[16] Annual Report for 1890.

[17] A very full list is given by F. A. Lincoln, _Directory of Exchanges for Woman’s Work_, pp. 24-26.

[18] “But it is not to be understood, because of this surplus, that the Woman’s Exchange is in any sense self-supporting. Such is not to be expected, and has never been any part of our scheme. The surplus comes, as was always anticipated, from public benevolence.” _Third Annual Report Woman’s Exchange_, San Francisco, California.

[19] How difficult the task is may be inferred from the following extracts from annual reports of two exchanges.

“While we can by watchfulness avoid any considerable number of such transactions (consignment of goods by other than needy and distressed gentlewomen) on the part of the residents of this coast, we are utterly helpless in cases coming from the other side of the continent, for which reason I think it is just and prudent to stop such exhibits altogether.”

“A prevalent opinion in the community, and one that does us no little harm, is that we help many well-to-do women. It is a very difficult, as well as a very delicate matter to learn just how needy our depositors are; we do not attempt to do so. We assume that they need to earn money from the fact that they desire to become depositors. But we gradually become more or less familiar with their lives, and we can assure you, as a rule, our money is well paid out.”

“Sometimes people unwittingly make very damaging statements. A short time ago a lady remarked to a friend that the exchange was not accomplishing any good--it only helped well-to-do women to earn pin-money, and verified her statement by giving the name of a wealthy lady who said she was a depositor. The matter was inquired into and the said name was found, but we also learned that the ticket had been bought to give to a needy woman, who became the depositor.”

The Riverside Press

_Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co._ _Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._