WOMEN IN BUINESS

Hokitika Guardian, 11 September 1930, Page 2

WOMEN IN BUINESS

i WHERE MONEY IS LOST. 1 SAN FRANCISCO, July 21. The average American tea room, with chintz curtains and a gracious woman hostess, is pretty much of a financial failure, decided the experts in Chicago, no matter what the quality of its soda biscuits and the size of its chicken salad portions. The experts consisted of the busi-ness-like board of directors of the National Business ’and Professional Women’s Clubs, in session in Chicago, to discuss-the women in business, to evolve plans to ease her path to prosperity.

The board of directors, made up wholly of successful business women, was unanimous in recommending that women cease attempting to start tea rooms merely with the recipe for a good salad dressing, and stop opening candy kitchens simply because they are expert at the concocting of divinity fudge. Statistics presented at the forum indicated that more money had been lost in/such ventures than in any other line of feminine endeavour. President Marion McClench explained the ; difficulties connected with the candle-lit tea. rooms and sketchy candy shops, “Most of the money in question has been lost by middle-aged women,” she said. “Being thrown suddenly upon their own resources, they have entered the restaurant or candy business without knowing their own abilities.” “A good example of that is a Virginia woman who formed the habit of making articles of dainty lingerie during a lifetime of leisure. She was.left a widow at 61. Did she open a tea room? She did not. She began making and selling the same kind of lingerie. Her income now is 40,000 dollars a year. “Another woman had' become a sort of unofficial authority on dress. She advised her friends what to wear and when to wear it. When financial reverses came she went into the business of making dresses on the personal prescription plan. She now is the head of a large mail-order firm. And she still insists that customers send a lock of their hair along with their orders so that the clothes they receive will be becoming.” While Miss McClench was discussing tea rooms, other members of the board were advocating women’s entrance more fully into public and civic life. They particularv frowned upon feminine attempts to dodge jury service. “The franchise carries with it responsibilities as well as privileges,” said Miss Annie Woodall. “Until women assume the responsihilties of citizenshin.” added Mrs Eastman, of Sandford, Maine, “they are not real citizens.”

Many women, however, nr© serving on juries, nnd, ns one delegate put it, “thev have proved very fair and conscientious in their opinions.”