A young society woman in a western city had recently been reduced to comparative poverty by sudden reverses which overtook her father, and being of an energetic and resourceful nature, she started a class in dancing and deportment, to earn something with which to assist her now almost dependent father and mother.
She sent out circulars to a long list of her acquaintances, announcing that her class would begin on a certain evening, and invited their patronage. She was so well known that she had no difficulty in securing a large class from the very beginning, as even those mothers who did not favor dancing were anxious to have their daughters properly instructed in social laws and customs from so competent and trustworthy a teacher.
She also gave private lessons in both dancing and deportment for the benefit of a number of families whose early advantages had not been such as to fit them for the places in society to which they now aspired. These lessons paid well.
PLAN No. 151. WOMAN’S EXCHANGE
Women’s exchanges, as usually conducted, consist of a number of women who form a sort of syndicate, have a board of managers, rent a suitable building, employ the necessary help to carry on the work, and pay annual dues of a stated amount each.
But an Omaha woman, who had only a very few dollars, and had a taste for that kind of work, concluded to start one all her own, and she made it a success.
Lacking the capital with which to rent a store room she used her parlor for that purpose, and succeeded so well that in a short time she was able to move to larger quarters, more centrally located.
She issued some neat circulars, inviting the women of her own and other neighborhoods to bring any articles they had for sale, and she would make an effort to dispose of them, or exchange them for other articles they desired, on the basis of a 10 per cent commission on all sales or exchanges made. As nearly every woman has certain belongings which she wishes to sell, or exchange for something else, there was a hearty response to the invitation, and her parlor was soon filled with a motley array of miscellaneous merchandise.
Every article was labeled with the name, address and telephone number of the owner, the price asked for it, or the goods for which it would be exchanged, and the parlor was thronged every day and evening with women patrons, who nearly always found something they were glad to buy at the marked price, so that the lady’s commissions began almost at once to assume very good proportions. Later she served lunches in her dining room, and these also were liberally patronized, so that she made a very good living from her exchange idea, and finally became the owner of a regular store.