The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1910-11-28

but she has proven herself to be
one of the cleverest American bust
ness women by the ever swelling
millions she has piled up. She was
left ten millions by her father and
husband and this amount has been
doubled two or three times through
her own financial operations.
# was with keen business acumen
that she some years ago realized
that the social section of Washing
ton must be greatly expanded in or
der to accommodate the ever in
creasing numbers of people who
We're flocking there and building
homes. She conceived a duplicate
of the fashionable Dupont Circle at
Sheridan Circle a little further out
She bought the unimproved proper
ty thereabout and built her own
fashionable residence in the micst OF
1t. This residence cost million dol
lars and, being designed by Mrs.
Barney herself, set the pace for the
new subdivision.
Soon her friends began to take lit
tie journeys out to see the new resi-
dence. She was always on hand to
expatiate on the beauty of the site
and soon she had sold her lots ana
what is more, had gotten orders to
build houses for her friends there
after her own designs. The wealthy
,Wyeths of Philadelphia, the Francois
Berger Morgans of Virginia, the Nor
man Williamses, diamond million
aires of South Africa were among
Mrs. Baney's customers who built
million dollar residences which she
designed. Presently real estate deal
ers awoke to the fact that a clever
woman had walked off with one of
the biggest plums that the Wash
ington market had ever offered.
Encouraged by this success Mrs.
Barney has taken up embassy build
ing as a speciality. For the Latin
delegations she builds concrete vii
las and spacious marble palaces with
the patios to which they have been
accustomed. Tentons get the sturdy
stone mansions that spell homeland
to them, and to the embassies form
the Far East she contributes the
Oriental color and seclusion that
makes the homesick Mongolian for
get his isolation. All this is vastly
profitable, but she does not admit the
commercial spirit back of it. Oh, no,
indeed, all this is done in the inter
est of art and for the artistic better
ment of the national capital, for why
should not Washington be made the
most beautiful city in the world?
While in Persia some years ago
she happened upon an ancient Sc
cret OF dyeing silk in shadow colors,
glorious variations of the rainbow.
She bought the secret from the ma
tibe dyer, took it to Paris and had
an eminent French chemist expert
ment with it after her own idea. Fl
nally she discovered a dyeing secret
by which silks can be given shadows
or tints that graduate from the tone
color to its most infinite variation.
The silk is made to look as if it is
alive with light, and where it has
been used on the stage it has done
away with excessive stage lighting,
spot lights and other crude methods
of making the dress of a dancer ex-
press the moods OF her dance.
A Phianthropic Inventor.
When Mrs. Barney returned to
Washington with her discovery she
did not sell this priceless secret to
manufacturers, as she might have
done, for good round sum, but she
took it down to Neighborhood House
and gave it away to the social set
tlement there so the poor mothers
and children from Europe who un-
derstand such artisan arts would be
encouraged and helped toward mon
ey making through the secret. So at
Neigihborhood House they have been
dyeing silk and selling it to the rich
of Washington and other cities on a
cooperative plan and the poor moth
ers and children of the slums are
getting the profit.
SO successful has Neighborhood .
House been with the shadow dyeing !
that Mrs. Barney has organized a
committee, of which Mrs. Taft is .
member, to see about putting the plan
before various settlement houses I
throughout the country.
Sorry Rlnpder