WOMEN IN BUSINESS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 10 September 1930, Page 8

WOMEN IN BUSINESS

WHERE MONEY IS LOST EXPERIENCE IN AMERICA TEA-ROOMS AND CANDY SHOPS SAN, ERANCISCO, 21st July. The average American tea room, with chintz curtains and a gracious woman hostess, is pretty much of a financial failure, decided tho experts in Chicago,' no matter what the quality, of its soda biscuits and the size of its chicken salad portions. Tho experts consisted of the businesslike board of directors of the National Business and Professional Women's Clubs, in session in Chicago, to discuss tho woman in business, to evolve plans to enso her path to prosperity. Tho board of directors, made up wholly of successful business women, was unanimous in recommending that women cease attempting to start tea rooms merely with tho recipe for a good salad I dressing, and stop, opening candy kitchens simply because they are expert at the concocting of divinity fudgo. Statistics presented at ' the forum indicated that more money had been lost in such ventures than in any other line of feminine endeaovur. President Marion McCiench explained the difficulties connected with tho candle-lit tea rooms and sketchy candy shops. "Most of the money in question has been lost by middle-aged women," she said. "Being suddenly thrown upon their own resources, they have entered the restaurant or candy business without knowing their own abilities." "A good example of tiiat 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 weir it. When financial reverses came, she went into the busienss 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." Whilo Miss McCiench was discussing tea rooms, other members of the board were advocating women's entrance more fully into public and civic life. They particularly frowned upon feminine attempts to dodge jury service. "The franchise carries with it responsibilities as well as privileges," said Miss Annie WoodaJl. "Until women assume tho responsibilities of citizenship," added Mrs Eastford, of Sandford, Maine, "they are not real citizens,"

Many women, however, are serving on juries, and, as one delegate put it, "they have proved very fair and conscientious in their opinions."