Money for women
One Hundred Ways a Woman Can Earn a Living – A New Way to Remember Your Friends – The Woman with a Pet Dog – Solving the Servant-girl Question – Shopping for Pleasure and Profit – Profits of a Lady Barber – The Business of “Samples” – The Rise of the Trained Nurse – Dollars in Scents – How to Go to Paris Without Cost – Something that will Sell to Millions of Shoppers – How Clara Louise Kellog Got a Start – A Woman Who Sold her Jewels for Newspapers – Women in the Civil Service.
The field of woman’s work has been vastly augmented during the last half-century. From school teaching and dressmaking, which were about the only occupations open to our grandmothers, the number of ways a woman can make a living have increased to over two hundred. To be exact, there are two hundred and twenty-one occupations open to women, out of a total of two hundred and fifty. It is the design of the author to give only those methods which are unique, unusual, and presumably unknown to most lady readers. In a few cases these money-making methods must be considered as only tributary to a larger source of revenue, as when a salaried position or business enterprise is not sufficient for a support, or when a woman wishes to help the family “eke out a living,” but in most cases it is expected that the suggestions if followed will be an adequate source of income. Several of these ways may often be united where one is insufficient. There is no need for any woman to marry for the sake of a home. The examples given will enable any lady of the least tact, skill, or enterprise, to secure an independent living.
166. The School Store. – If you live near a public school, a small store containing candies, school supplies and knickknacks for the children will be found to bring much profit. The store need not be large or conspicuous. A room in a private house will do. Children, like bees, are all fond of sweets. The store need be open only for an hour in the morning, or noon, and at the close of school, so that other work may be carried on at the same time. A dressmaker, with hours arranged so as not to conflict, could combine very well these two ways of earning a living.
167. The Hand Album. – Have an album made in usual style, except that the places for pictures are omitted. Smear each page with soft wax to the depth of one-sixth of an inch. When a friend calls, slightly heat a page and request him to lay his hands, palms down, upon it. In that way you can preserve the digits of your friends, and you will be surprised to find there is as much difference in hands as in faces. When your album is full, if you choose you can consult a patent lawyer, and arrange to protect your invention. A novelty of this kind would doubtless be immensely popular, and enable the author to reap a financial harvest.
168. The Novelty Bakery. – A woman who knows how to make tempting creations in flour can make a good living. Begin by taking your goods to the Woman’s Exchange, of which almost every large city has at least one. If your baking is novel, from the Exchange will come demands from private customers, and even orders from hotels. A New England woman, beginning in a small way, in a few months had an income of $33 per week.
169. The Front Yard Snap. – With a photographer’s outfit, go through the better class residential sections of a city or town and take the pictures of the children which you will see in every street, and in almost every front yard. Get a child in a most striking position, on a wheel, or in a swing or hammock, or at play. Secure parent’s consent to take the picture. No matter if they declare that they will not purchase, they will yield when they see a pretty picture of their child. Much money can be made at this.
170. The Pet Dog. – Do you know that pet dogs often bring enormous prices? You want the Yorkshire terriers, or the King Charles spaniels, or some of the rare Japanese breeds. A lady in New York counts on $500 yearly as the income from the families raised from one dog, a King Charles spaniel.
171. The Box Lunch. – There is a large field for some one to cultivate in our great office buildings and factories. Thousands would pay for a light lunch which costs five cents, and is sold for ten cents. Rent a small room near a business center. Make known your occupation. Go through the places of business if possible, or if not take a stand near the door, and if your lunch is tastefully arranged, it will find many buyers. After a time you will get regular customers. Profits 100 per cent.
172. The Hair-Dresser. – A refined business for women is the dressing of hair. For $25 you can learn the business. Place samples of all kinds of bangs and switches in the window. They can be sold for a great profit, and if industrious, you can build up in a good neighborhood an excellent paying business, and best of all, it can be done in your own home.
173. Typo and Steno. – In many large cities typewriting and stenography may be learned in the Y. W. C. A. Then with a machine and a rented room cheaply furnished a woman is all ready for business. Many women are making $25 per week. One enterprising young lady takes dictated matter in short hand, and then typewrites it at her leisure, thus saving much time to her busy patrons.
174. The Sewing School. – Here is a vast unworked field. If you understand needlework, and have a little business enterprise, you are certain to succeed. Advertise in the papers and get out circulars, stating that for the small sum of twenty-five cents per week you will teach all pupils plain and fancy sewing. Form your pupils into classes, and if you are gentle and patient, as well as skillful at the needle, you will in a short time have the work which mothers are glad to get rid of. And it can all be done in your own home.
175. Flat Hunting. – Rent a small office and advertise that for a trifling fee you will exactly suit persons looking for homes, and save them all the trouble. Three or four hours a day are spent in house-hunting, and two in the office. You must have a book with your customers’ demands set down in detail, and another book with a careful description of each house to let. A commission might be exacted from both owner and renter. An enterprising woman could in a short time build up a large business in this way.
176. A Tea Room. – Hire a counter in a fashionable store much frequented by ladies. Have a sign that fresh tea is sold here, made to order with good cream. Small accessories may be fresh rolls, toasted crumpets, bread and butter, and other light articles of food. Ladies weary with shopping will surely come to your counter to be refreshed. A lady in one of our large cities made a fortune by this means. The requirements are dazzling cleanliness, a smiling welcome, a cheerful place near the door, and hot, fresh tea.
177. Dress Mending. – Here is a good field. There is a vast army of women who would patronize a mending office rather than run around the city to find a sewing woman, or use their own limited time in the use of the needle. Have a tariff of prices for mending gloves, sewing on buttons, renewing the sleeves, putting braid around the bottom of dresses, etc. The right woman could earn a good living at this business.
178. Lace Handling. – The mending and washing of fine laces is a work that is given to experts, and commands high prices, yet is easily learned. In five lessons at a dollar apiece any lady of ordinary intelligence can learn, or, cheaper yet, one can sometimes give services in return for instruction. You are then in a position to earn a great deal of money. Issue a thousand circulars to the wealthier people of the city, letting them know of your enterprise. This plan combines the three advantages of fascinating employment, good pay, and work done at home.
179. Intelligence Office on the subscription plan. – Buy a copy of the “Social Register;” send circulars to all persons named therein; announce that you have opened an intelligence office on a new plan. For $10 a year you will keep them supplied with as many servants as they want, and you will guarantee satisfaction. Make a specialty of securing servants for people going out of town. Thus you will go far toward solving the perplexing question for your patrons, and make an excellent living for yourself.
180. Professional Mending. – Hotels, boarding houses and bachelor apartments have loud and long calls for mending. Mothers with little ones, professional women, and school-teachers, as well as men, have neither time nor taste for this kind of work. Have an outfit in a small satchel, which should contain a light lunch, a white apron, and various assortments of tapes, buttons, etc. In a short time one would have a regular round of customers. One lady who did this never had to go out of one large hotel for work.
181. The College Cram. – There is room for a lady with a