Ladies of the Ticker by George Robb

Author:George Robb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Figure 9. “Female Brokers Securing a Customer,” Matthew Hale Smith, Bulls and Bears of New York (Hartford, CT: J. B. Burr, 1875): 273. (Courtesy of the New York Historical Society)

A Bastion of Male Privilege

Woodhull and Claflin had breached the exclusive fraternity of Wall Street, but not for long. During their brief sojourn on the Street, they had exposed its clubbish atmosphere and misogynist high jinks. The macho atmosphere of the stock exchange endured for decades afterward, creating a hostile environment for women. Many brokers’ offices replicated the masculine ambience of saloons, with free cigars, free lunches, and paintings of naked women.81 Brokers did not have reputations as staid businessmen, like bankers, but as “sporting gentlemen.” According to Cedric Cowing, “the typical broker was pictured as pleasure-seeking and crafty, a nervous dandy with watery eyes and muddy complexion; he was not the type that made a good family man, nor the type an American mother would want her son to become.”82 One Wall Street guide from 1887 described brokers as “jolly, frisky and sportive as so many colts.” Like fraternity brothers, they established aggressive hazing rituals for new members. “His $10 silk hat may be knocked off and kicked into complete collapse; his $40 coat may be torn down the back…he may be hoisted on a table and spun around on his sit-down until drunk with confusion.”83

The macho atmosphere of Wall Street was receptive to neither women nor sensitive men. Woodhull and Claflin experienced the “rough music” of the Street's young brokers and clerks. In 1869, Susan B. Anthony noted the aggressive stares directed at any women, except elderly apple sellers, who ventured into the financial district. In 1887, Sophia Mattern was set upon in the street and hooted by office boys when she sued her broker for malfeasance.84 During his 1882 lecture tour of America, the British aesthete Oscar Wilde also received a raucous welcome on Wall Street. Wilde was already notorious for his effeminate demeanor, which attracted the notice of the financial district's messenger boys. According to the New York Times, “Oscar looked his sweetest” with “flowing tresses” and “rainbow stockings tucked into dapper knee-breeches.” The rowdy boys “crowded close around the aesthete and did him honor after a fashion which brought new horrors to his sensitive nature and affecting blushes to his cleanly cheek.” Taking refuge in the nearby Stock Exchange, Wilde was immediately set upon by the brokers, who sought to send “their visitor forth to the world, hatless, coatless, and in a generally dilapidated condition.” The Times celebrated the brokers and messenger boys marking their territory by driving out the womanly man.85

Feminists denounced Wall Street as the embodiment of male sexual excess, and brokers and financiers seldom contradicted them. Many Wall Street men embraced the sporting lifestyle and self-image of playboy. At the turn of the century, a group of New York financiers contributed money to maintain a “house of mirth” where chorus girls and prostitutes entertained businessmen and politicians. Legendary financiers like Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jim

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