Not all girls, on the other hand, who have taken the domestic science course are fitted to take up this work, even if a market could be found for their work. Only the expert, that is, the precise, accurate, painstaking cook, can secure uniform results day after day. Only the rapid worker can do enough to insure pay for her time. Only the girl with a keen sense of taste can properly judge results and devise successful combinations. Only a business woman can buy to advantage and compute ratios of expense and return. This combination, of course, is not to be found every day.
Salesmanship. Passing from the class of work which has to do with making things to that group of occupations which has to do with the distribution of various products to the consumer, we shall naturally consider, first of all, the saleswoman. In any given group of young and untrained girls drawn as in our schools from varying environment and heredity, the natural saleswomen will probably be in the minority. I do not mean that girls may not often express a desire to "work in a store" as apparently the easiest and most immediate employment for the untrained girl. This may or may not indicate that the girl has a commercial mind. The girl who is really interested in commercial undertakings is easily distinguished from her fellow workers in any salesroom. She is not the girl who lingers in conversation with the girl next to her while a customer waits, or who gazes indifferently over the customer's head while the latter makes her choice from the goods laid before her. To the real saleswoman every customer is a possibility, every sale a victory, and every failure to sell distinctly a defeat. The fact that we see so few girls and women of this type behind the counters in our shopping centers is sufficient indication that many girls would have been better placed in other occupations.
Photograph by Brown Bros.
Hardware section of a department store. Salesmanship offers large opportunities to the real saleswoman, who considers every customer a possibility
We find, however, in 1910, the number of saleswomen reported as 257,720, together with 111,594 "clerks" in stores, many of whom the report states are "evidently saleswomen" under another name. There are also about 4,000 female proprietors, officials, managers, and floorwalkers in stores, and 2,000 commercial travelers. This gives us a large number of women who are engaged in the sale of goods. For the girl of the commercial mind, salesmanship in some form presents certain possibilities, although there is far less chance for her to rise in this work than for a boy. She must begin at the most rudimentary work, as cash or errand girl, and her progress will necessarily be slow. She will require an ability to handle with some skill elementary forms of arithmetic, an alert and observing mind, an interest in and some knowledge of human nature, and good health to endure the confinement of the long day. She will be fortunate if she finds a place in one of the stores in which a continuation school is conducted. At such a school in Altman's department store in New York the girls pursue a regular course designed to be especially helpful in their work, and are graduated with all due formality, in which both public-school and store officials take part. Such a school helps girls to feel a pride in their work and to feel that they are under observation by those who will recognize and reward real endeavor. Filene's in Boston and Wanamaker's in New York and Philadelphia are other notable examples of such schools.
In a government report previously quoted we find interesting figures as to the possibility of advancement for the saleswoman. In a study of twenty-six of the largest department stores in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, employing more than 35,000 women, the workers were classed as follows:
| Per Cent | |
| Cash girls, messengers, bundle girls, etc | 13.2 |
| Saleswomen | 46.2 |
| Buyers and assistant buyers | 1.2 |
| Office and other employees | 39.4 |
"It will be seen," adds the report, "that the opportunity for reaching the coveted position of buyer or assistant buyer is small."