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.
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.