Progress in the household

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 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:

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:

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.

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.”