10. More Than Just Penny Capitalists: The Range of Female Entrepreneurship in Mid-Nineteenth-Century US Cities

For recognition by business historians, see Rowena Olegario, A Culture of Credit: Embedding Trust and Transparency in American Business (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 109–12, and Philip Scranton and Patrick Fridenson, Reimagining Business History (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), pp. 80–81. Nineteenth-century US businesswomen represented as ‘exceptional’ in the press and online include steel-magnate Rebecca Lukens (1794–1854), Margaret Haughery, the Irish immigrant ‘bread woman of New Orleans’ (1813–1882), and herbal-medicine entrepreneur Lydia Pinkham (1819–1883). See Much, Marilyn, ‘America’s First Female Industrialist Rebecca Lukens was the Original Iron Lady’, Investor’s Business Daily, 31 August 2018, https://​www.​investors.​com/​news/​management/​leaders-and-success/​americas-first-female-industrialist-rebecca-lukens-was-the-original-iron-lady/​; Flynn, Sheila, ‘Meet the First Woman Troll Victim…’, Daily Mail, 11 June 2018, https://​www.​dailymail.​co.​uk/​news/​article-5830249/​One-Americas-successful-businesswomen-trolled-using-image-marketing-ads.​html; Haughery’s story has recently been complicated to include her support of white supremacist groups during Reconstruction. However, this challenge to her status as a benevolent philanthropist does not negate the fact that she was both successful and famous. James Karst, ‘Margaret Haughery: Friend of Orphans … and of White Supremacist Militia’, The Times-Picayune, 25 March 2018, https://​www.​nola.​com/​entertainment_​life/​vintage/​article_​091cd9f2-4743-5eb7-94b7-20bd1055ac13.​html. A typical representation of the ‘great women’ coverage of nineteenth-century female entrepreneurship in the United States would be Virginia G. Drachman, Enterprising Women, 250 Years of Female Entrepreneurship (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).

Wendy Gamber’s The Female Economy: The Millinery and Dressmaking Trades, 1860–1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press) appeared in 1997; her The Boardinghouse in Nineteenth-Century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press) was published in 2007; Angel Kwolek-Folland’s Incorporating Women: A History of Women and Business in the United States (NY: Twayne) in 1998; Mary Yeager’s edited collection Women in Business (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar) in 1999; Edith Sparks’ Capital Intentions: Female Proprietors in San Francisco, 1850–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press) in 2010; my own Unexceptional Women: Female Proprietors in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Albany, New York, 1830–1885 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press) in 2009.

The brilliant term ‘zombie theories’ (i.e. flawed theories that will not die) was used by historian Silvia Arrom during a panel where she was chairing, and I was commenting at the 2011 meeting of the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women. Literature on the cult of domesticity and separate spheres in the mid-nineteenth century abounds, but from my own years in graduate school in the 1980s, the most memorable would be Nancy Cott’s The Bonds of Womanhood: ‘Woman’s Sphere’ in New England, 1780–1835 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978). Even historians of working women, like Alice Kessler-Harris, insisted that respectable women could not have run businesses (Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).

R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, Harvard Business School (HBS). The cities whose ledgers I have partially sampled include the following: Atlanta, Baltimore, Buffalo, Charleston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Davenport, Detroit, Dubuque, Galveston, Indianapolis, Louisville, Milwaukee, Mobile, Nantucket, Nashville, New Bedford, New Orleans, Newport, Pittsburgh, Portland (Maine), Providence, Richmond, Rochester, Savannah and St. Louis. The two cities for which I have transcribed all entries on women in business (under their own names or those of male relatives) are Albany, New York, and Memphis, Tennessee. I have also sampled entries from the R.G. Dun & Co. volumes on Nevada and the West (western territories not yet states).

For my initial research in the 1990s and early 2000s, I depended on microfilm for the census records and worked with the original city directories. This type of research would clearly be impossible for a nation-wide project. However, today one can employ ancestry.com to search for throughout the United States in all of the decennial federal censuses, and this genealogical database has recently added many city directories, newspapers and some legal records as well. Therefore, a nation-wide project has become quite feasible.

Conversely, some listed in women’s names were actually managed by their male relatives.

Wisconsin, 36:56, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, Harvard Business School (HBS).

My method of sampling was not designed to create a scientific statistical sample but to explore credit ledgers for different communities by scanning pages from various volumes for selected locations and/or using the indexes for larger cities to attempt to identify female names and looking those up.

All the currencies in this chapter refer to US dollars.

Georgia, 29:468, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

Fancy goods included everything from trimmings to perfume to decorative boxes and albums; notions included sewing items like buttons and thread, but there was an overlap between these categories—indeed, there were numerous overlaps between stores advertised as millinery goods, fancy goods, notions, dry goods and ladies’ furnishing goods.

In today’s dollars, her estimated worth would equal at least $3500–4500; every dollar amount in this chapter should be multiplied by at least 23, and as much as hundred, depending on how one calculates the difference. Using inflation calculators easily available on the Internet (www.​in2013dollars.​com, or https://​www.​officialdata.​org), I would approximate a larger sum; in an era where women often made $3 a week, compared to a US minimum wage of $290 for a 40-hour week today, one could simply multiply by hundred. According to that calculation, a penny capitalist like Ayer would be worth $15,000–20,000 in today’s dollars.

Ohio, 85:201, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

See Mansel G. Blackford, A History of Small Business in America (NY: Twayne, 1991), p. 124; and ‘Small Business in America: A Historiographic Survey’, Business History Review 65, no. 1 (Spring 1991): pp. 1–26, p. 25.

Rhode Island, 3:179, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

Federal Census 1870: Cincinnati Ward 8, Hamilton, Ohio, Roll M593_1211, p. 103A, Family History Library Film no. 552710, U.S. Federal Census Collection, ancestry.com, https://​www.​ancestry.​com.​au/​search/​categories/​usfedcen/​ (hereafter Federal Census).

c = 100 in R.G. Dun & Co. shorthand; Alabama 17:145, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

Mrs James Perry was identified as Mary in the credit records, but Marion or Marianne in the census. New York 80:21, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS. Federal Census 1860: Buffalo Ward 10, Erie, New York, Roll M653_748, p. 837, Family History Library Film no. 803748; Federal Census 1870: Buffalo Ward 4, Erie, New York, Roll M593_933, p. 395A, Family History Library Film no. 552432.

Texas, 13:44, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

Massachusetts, 20:455, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS; Sophia Ray’s children were born between 1834 and 1842, when she was aged 26–34. Federal Census 1850, Nantucket, Mass, Roll M432_328, p. 302A, Image: 24; Federal Census 1860, Nantucket, Mass, Roll: M653_513, p. 761, Family History Library Film no. 803513; Federal Census 1870, Nantucket, Mass, Roll M593_634, p. 6B, Family History Library Film no. 552133.

Rhode Island, 11:299, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

US City Directories, 1822–1995, ancestry.com. https://​www.​ancestry.​com/​search/​collections/​usdirectories/​

New York, 8:344 L, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

Massachusetts, 17:17, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS; Federal Manuscript Census 1860; New Bedford Ward 5, Bristol, Massachusetts, Roll M653_490, p. 707, Family History Library Film no. 803490; Federal Manuscript Census 1870; New Bedford Ward 5, Bristol, Massachusetts, Roll M593_605, p. 205B, Family History Library Film no. 552104; Federal Manuscript Census 1880; New Bedford, Bristol, Massachusetts, Roll 525, p. 223B, Enumeration District 115.

Massachusetts, 17:17, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

Hair Goods included hairpieces and wigs, plus hair jewellery.

Tennessee, 6:93, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

Pennsylvania, 5:53, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

It is difficult to determine how much of Nichols personal property and real estate (listing the 1870 federal manuscript census as $15,000 and $20,000, respectively) were inherited, and how much had been generated by her business, but her husband’s personal estate was estimated as only $800 in the 1860 census. According to the credit records, she had inherited property from her mother and was known to have government bonds.

South Carolina, 6:47, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

Moore in West, 2:16, Wright in West 2:106, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

Ohio, 40:319, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

Geo. F. Cram & Co., Part 26, City of Cleveland map, 1892, Collection Number G&M_29, Roll Number 29, U.S., Indexed County Land Ownership Maps, 1860–1918, ancestry.com, https://​www.​ancestry.​com/​search/​collections/​landownershipatl​as/​

Georgia, 14:176, 408, 434, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

Maryland, 7:173, 175, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

Charles Sisco in Federal Census 1870: Baltimore Ward 11, Baltimore, Maryland, Roll M593_576, p. 46B, Family History Library Film: 552075; Charles Sisco in Federal Census 1880: District 9, Baltimore, Maryland; Roll 496, p. 168B, Enumeration District 243; 1883 Baltimore City Directory, Ancestry.com. United States City Directories, 1822–1995 [database online].

Kentucky, 74:171, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

‘Brief Mention’, The Dayton Herald, 15 June 1886, p. 1; ‘Betting Rooms Consolidated’, The New York Times, 22 April 1886, p. 3.

Missouri, 36:324³³, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

St. Louis Public Library, ‘What on Earth was Uhrig’s Cave?’, https://​www.​slpl.​org/​news/​what-on-earth-was-uhrigs-cave/​; Chris Naffziger, ‘Under Our Feet: Exploring The Tunnels & Caverns Upon Which St. Louis Was Built’, mySTL, https://​mystlcity.​com/​stl-tunnels/​

Tennessee, 29:140, 302, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

Madame Vincent is the subject of a web page created by a volunteer group, Historic-Memphis, ‘Madame Vincent and the Memphis Crystal Palace Saloon’: http://​www.​historic-memphis.​com/​biographies/​madame-vincent/​madame-vincent.​html

Caroline Bird, Enterprising Women (NY: W. W. Norton, 1976). Bird did not consult the R.G. Dun & Co. credit ledgers in her research (and I am unaware of whether she knew they existed).

The statue originally stood in a park, both named for ‘Margaret’; the statue was renovated in 2015.

Louisiana, 14:110, 165, 166, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.

See Brister, Nancy, ‘The Bread Lady of New Orleans’, Old New Orleans, The Past Whispers, http://​old-new-orleans.​com/​NO_​Margaret.​html; Villarubbia, Eleonore, ‘An Indomitable Woman: Margaret Haughery, The Breadwoman of New Orleans’, Catholicism.​org, http://​catholicism.​org/​an-indomitable-woman-margaret-haughery-the-breadwoman-of-new-orleans-2.​html; Luck, Adrienne, ‘Margaret Haughery: “Friend of the Orphans”’, New Orleans Historical, http://​www.​neworleanshistor​ical.​org/​items/​show/​477; Butler, Eoin, ‘The Girl from Leitrim Who Became the “Angel” of New Orleans’, The Irish Times, 21 August 2019; https://​www.​irishtimes.​com/​life-and-style/​abroad/​the-girl-from-leitrim-who-became-the-angel-of-new-orleans-1.​2964329; Haughery is also the subject of two books: Flora Strousse’s children’s book, Margaret Haughery: Bread Woman of New Orleans (P. J. Kennedy & Sons, 1961), recently reprinted by Bethlehem Books in Bathgate, North Dakota in 2016, and Mary Lou Widmer’s Margaret, Friend of Orphans (Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company 1996).

New York, 162:100, 243, R.G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, HBS.