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Page Fifteen
Woman Bank Receiver Says Business World Is Not a Natural Place for Women
Isabel Darlington, Holding Prominent Position in Bank in Pennsylvania Ore-Smelting Locality, Says Necessity Drives Most Women Into Professional World-Emphasizes Fact That Women Cannot Expect to Be Successful Home-Makers and Successful Business Women at the Same Time
By William E. McKeachie
USINESS women, especially professional women, B you usually find sophisticated. They usually remark, with a blase wave of the hand, that the natural capabilities of the female sex are just being recognized by the world outside of the home. And, as a rule, they are prone to prophesy that in a twinkling of an eye women will be running the business of the world, controling the finances, dictating international relations— even replacing every mother's son as a future President. But, just as you have about decided that women, with "this freedom," are on the verge of ousting men from their traditional places, or that in an effort to realize entirely overestimated opinions of themselves they are on the brink of ruining future American homes, along comes Miss Isabel Darlington, the first woman bank receiver and for 27 years a law partner of Con-
Instead he appointed this motherly looking, keen-eyed woman receiver-making her the first woman to hold a position of that type. Surely you'd expect a woman of such recognized merit to predict something more promising for the future of her sex.
But not Isabel Darlington.
"Listen," she said, bending her head, gray- tinted, much like that of a successful middle- aged business man over a mahogany table in the closed bank, "women are driven into business and professions in most cases for the same reasons that men are-necessity. "Take myself, for example," she continued, apologizing for being personal, "I was graduated from Wellesley in 1886. I had no intention of going into the business world. But several years after I received my A.B., my father met with financial reverses. It was necessary gressman Thomas S. Butler at the West Chester, Pa., bar, who says that the business and professional world is not a woman's natural place and that many generations will pass before females will even threaten to remove men from their historic places in the scheme of things.
That is, indeed, a shock, though a pleasant one, to one who has heard the contrary so often since women have taken up being Governors and Senators that he has almost decided to study domestic science to fit himself for the "inevitable" change in the old order.
It is a shock for several reasons. In the first place, when the Parkesburg, Pa., National Bank lost $100,000 and was closed on October 4 because of alleged embezzlement and misappropriation of funds by several former officials and a New York promoter, every inhabitant of that ore-smelting locality expected Joseph W. McIntosh, Comptroller of Currency at Washington, to put a "hardfisted fnancier to the task of collecting and distributing the calem of the bank. for me to do something. and so I went to the University of Pennsylvania Law School and was graduated in 1897eleven years after finishing college." That was frank for a woman. And it was so different from hearing the old story about feeling the throb of business and just knowing that women could be as successful as men. Of course Miss Darlington is not so different from other women that she thinks women have no place in the world of money-making. In fact, she takes a natural pride in pointing out that practically all professions, especially advertising, merchandising and journalism, have women of far-spread fame, women who have proved themselves quite as capable as men. "It is hard to find a business office nowadays," she said, "that has not at least one woman in a responsible position. Women can usually be implicitly trusted; you seldom hear of one dishonest in business. And they are logical thinkers, if properly trained." "Properly trained"-that suggested a theme to her. Instead of claiming that the so-called woman's intuition works out in business life she said that women, like men, need to be trained. "More women than ever before are going to college today," she said. "The future will find many more wearing cap and gown. More women than ever before are using their college training in the business and professional world. The future will find many more behind desks, at the bar, in medicine, in politics, banking, and so on." Three factors, in Mins Darlington's opinion, influence a woman's success outside of the home. They are the same that determine a rign's success-heredity, environment, education. Because she was in a hurry to get at some accounts, she again used herself as an example. "I took this receiver's job, despite the fact that financial matters are usually confusing to women, because these three factors enabled me to do it," she said rapidly. "As my father was always engaged in finance an understanding of it was almost born in me. The environment was conducive to this work, because I heard it discussed for years. Study at college and years of practicing business law-I don't handle much criminalgave me the training." And those are the three factors, she believes, that will eventually give women a prominent place in business life, if they claim it. But even these will not necessarily enable women to overshadow men. The discussion was not over here, even though Miss Darlington was anxious to get at her job. For she hastened to put in a "but." "But," she emphasized, "women cannot expect to be successful home-makers and home-keepers and successful business women at the same time." Her view is that either of these tasks is more than enough to take all of any woman's time. As any mother knows, children and a husband make every day full. And as any business woman will vouch. business keeps one occupied all day and even after closing time.
