The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1930-07-17
Colonial Women in Business

(NeW York TlmeS)
If the subject of career for women had held the same
interest In colonial times as 1t has now, a mass of data
might have come down that would make the unusual
things women are doing today seem less important. The
personality story had not come into vogue then. If q
woman saw her place in some other line than home
management, it is not recorded that this was a matter
ior particular comment. And that plenty of them did SO
Is apparent from the advertising notices they inserted
In the newspapers Of their time.
Sarah Todd and Mary Purcell, for instance, kept q
stock that for variety would do justice to the yard-goods
section OF the modern department store. They carried
oa1a sa!ieties. groerains, Persians. satins and silks.
brick. clear and flowerd lawns, cyprus, gauze, tandem
Holland, India Bingham. white calico and damask for
tao!e cioths; cap lace, black bone laces and troly ditto,
and white and colored blond lace; horsehair quilted
petite pest,coa ats and a variety of newest fashiond Prussian
One knows about them and their establishment through
tneir notice OF removal in 1853. at the time when COM
petition In trade was particularly keen and a price-cut-
ting war ragged among the merchants at Boston. The
notice was to inform the public that Notwithstanding
the nl-natured opposition they have met with, though
to them" the Misses Todd and Purcell were remoyine
their shop from opposite the Old Brick Westinghouse
IN Ccrnhill to the house lately occupied by Mrs. Eliza
Cornhnl. Boston. where they hope their friends and others
Will favor them with their custom and whom they en-
gage to supply at the lowest rate that any fair trade
can afford them for cash"
Mary Jackson and son were in business together in
Boston IN 1851. according to their advertisement in The
chronicle. selling q few firkins Of good butter, choice
pork, hogs fat and cheese for sale at the Braxen-head
IN nc. Cor I This appears to have been a special" of
AoACu ny u mouse whose regular line was AL kinds OF
braziers. cutters, pewterers and ironmongery goods, whole
sale and retail"
The trade school of today had a forerunner In Boston
IN l767 conceived of and run by a woman, If Elizabeth
Courtncys advertisement in the Gazette Of October 10
bore fruit. The advertisement runs: Elizabeth Court
ney. as several ladies have signified of having a desire
to learn that most ingenious art Of painting on gauze
ana catgut, proposes to open a school,. and that her bust
ness may be Q public good. designs to teach the making
OF al sort OF French trimmings. flowers and feather
muffs and tippets."
The picture OF a woman in the horse-shoeing business
may startle the twentieth century as an extreme example
OF the length to which modern woman;s invasion of mans
fields OF work has gone: yet pre-Revolutionary Boston
paused to read In 1767 that 1.-THE Widow Hendry, having
had her workshop destroyed in the late fire in Paddys
Alley, carries on the farrier's business on Scarletts
Wharf, at the north end. where she hopes her customers
will continue their favor to her in her d~eplorable circum-
stances, having 9 very c~hargeahle family and met with
heavy losses by said fire."