Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-03
BY EDNA ROBB WEBSTER.

" these days of press agents and paid
testimonials you hear a great deal
about women who are receiving per-
AZ fectly fabulous incomes.
Movie contracts have way of pro-
viding five or six figure salaries to a few for
tunate women and inherited millions take care
of the sometimes spectacular wants of a few
others, but little is heard of the women who
have won success after actually going to work.
in more or less prosaic business.
In fact, the mere identity of Americas highest
salaried business woman is known to but very
few people. And her salary-generally believed
to be 100000 year-cones from a business
that sounds almost old-fashioned.
She is Mrs. Blanche r. Green, and her bust
ness is corsetS. Just few years ago this meant
going from house to house in small town in
New York and convincing skeptical housewives
that the nodded figure was necessary to hap
piness. Now it means taking care of all the
executive details connected with being vice
president and general sales manager of the
same concern she worked for then and which
now has factories in America and in England. :,
Mrs. Green's unusual business career began
one bitter cold February day when as a very
young woman she arrived in the New Haven
Office of firm which employed corsetieres and
sought out the man whose signature appeared
on the letter she held in her hand.
She had come by stage coach over Is miles
of snow-d rifted roads through the Berkshires to
a railroad station, and thence by stuffy day
coach to interview the man she hoped could
give her the position she so desperately needed.
II am Mrs. Green" she told him. you said
If were ever in New Haven, might come to
see you. So here am"
TRUE the manufacturer had said that, but
only as polite closing to an otherwise dis
couraging letter. When she had applied for q
territory, he had viSioned her as an incompetent
farm woman with unpromising field, where
women had more for designed corsets
than Nubian slave would have for a raccoon
coat.
He had told her that they required repre-
sentatives to make at least four sales per day
that should discourage her-and then added the
polite sentence which had given her the courage
to go to New Haven.
Mrs. Green's appearance soon convinced him
that everybody makes mistakes, for here was an
attractive, well poised young woman, willing to
accept any field offered her. Therefore, he de-
cidcd to give her a trial.
Mrs. Green chose for her field the small town
of Chatham, N. Y, for she planned that later,
if she made good, she would take her husband
there to be near famous doctor
She arrived in Chatham on washington's
birthday, when business was being trans
acted, and was obliged to sit in her boarding
house room all day, while it rained torrents and
the sky was as black as her situation.
II had but $13 in the world the landlady and
my fellow boarders had assured me that could
never sell So corsets to the women of Chatham
and 1 almost dreaded the morning when I
should start out with my sample case, ringing
door bells to be answered by skepticaI house
wives.
Il finally convinced my first prospect how
ever, that had just what she needed obtained
her order and the names of her friends-and
made 10 sales that day, with commission of
$25. That first week earned $3.50, which
success continued
II always worked on a commission, never had
salary. After IL months in Chatham, I
moved to Poughkeepsie, N. Y, where the hap
piest- days of my business life were spent in
retail work.
WHEN the present has become the past and
the next generation will have accepted the
feminine power in the commercial world as per-
manent, rather than an experiment or a tenta-
tive adventure, perhaps some one will attempt
to choose the 10 greatest women from the
pioneers of industry.
But whoever the other nine may be, you
might safely predict that Blanche Granville
Green will be one of that list. Nor is her dis
tnction of being America'S-and therefore the
world's-highest salared business woman the
only attribute which will place her in that
group.
She has revolutionized business methods and
policies in the marketing OF her product, and
all the while she has borne a sorrow burden
which would have made querulous dependents
of most women.
Mrs. Green is called "the woman with the
million dollar smile" The title describes her
and do such words as handsome gracious
magnetic, optimistic, efficient and unpretentious
The strangest part of Mrs. Green's story is
that her career was thrust upon her She had
never aspired to become a business woman, was