Start Date
12-6-2011 9:30 AM
End Date
12-6-2011 12:00 PM
Subject Areas
gender, labor/business
Abstract
A widow at the age of 40 with three children, MacDougall became a wholesaler of roasted coffee and eventually the owner of several restaurants. Her restaurant business can be counted as part of the proliferation of commercial eating establishments which sprung up in the first half of the twentieth century. MacDougall wrote The Autobiography of a Businesswoman (1928) in which she, a successful businesswoman, advised women not to go into business. She illustrates the paradox of some of the early twentieth century businesswomen who dissuaded women from going into business or set limits for women in business. Often asked to speak to women's groups such as the Business and Professional Women's Club (BPWC) in New York City, her message was anything but supportive of women in business. On one occasion for the BPWC she said, "I do not believe that women should go into business at all. It's a cruel and distressing life."
In addition to analyzing the paradox of Alice MacDougall, this paper will tie in business themes of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth- centuries. Analyzing MacDougall also brings to light questions: Where do business women fit in the dominant field of women's history? Is it time to widen our lens of which women to include in U.S. business history?
Keywords
U.S. businesswomen
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
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A Businesswoman against Businesswomen: The Paradox of Alice Foote MacDougall
A widow at the age of 40 with three children, MacDougall became a wholesaler of roasted coffee and eventually the owner of several restaurants. Her restaurant business can be counted as part of the proliferation of commercial eating establishments which sprung up in the first half of the twentieth century. MacDougall wrote The Autobiography of a Businesswoman (1928) in which she, a successful businesswoman, advised women not to go into business. She illustrates the paradox of some of the early twentieth century businesswomen who dissuaded women from going into business or set limits for women in business. Often asked to speak to women's groups such as the Business and Professional Women's Club (BPWC) in New York City, her message was anything but supportive of women in business. On one occasion for the BPWC she said, "I do not believe that women should go into business at all. It's a cruel and distressing life."
In addition to analyzing the paradox of Alice MacDougall, this paper will tie in business themes of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth- centuries. Analyzing MacDougall also brings to light questions: Where do business women fit in the dominant field of women's history? Is it time to widen our lens of which women to include in U.S. business history?