Our Rich History: Women, work and lunchrooms in late 1800s, paving way for women’s opportunities

By Paul A. Tenkotte, PhD
Special to NKyTribune

Part 11 of an occasional series about fast food restaurants

In the late 1800s, some women began to operate successful lunchtime restaurants, generally known as “lunchrooms,” in the Cincinnati area. These were the result of several efforts. First, downtown areas began to be the centerpieces of commerce, where thousands of employees commuted each day to work via streetcars and commuter trains. These workers needed quick, reliable places to eat their lunch. ( See the NKyTribune here. )

Second, Americans became increasingly aware of the necessity for clean restaurants where proper health standards could be maintained. ( See the NKyTribune story here .)

Third, women crusaded for better economic opportunities than the narrow, traditional roles long assigned to them.

Middle- and upper-class women led the effort to extend opportunities for women, especially those of limited means, to sell their handmade products. In January 1883, the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune proudly announced that a Cincinnati Women’s Exchange had been established, based upon the models of such “great metropolitan centers, such as New York and London.” The following day, the Commercial Tribune featured a more detailed article, stating that the Women’s Exchange had rented a location for its store in the Phoenix Insurance Building on the west side of Race Street, between Sixth and Seventh Streets. The shop would accept consignments of goods produced by women. As the reporter explained, “such a sales and order room must be a great beneficence to the extremely poor who do not know how to make their talent available or find a market for their work, as well as to those in straitened circumstances who are yet reluctant to come before the public as bread-winners” (“Women’s Exchange. Establishment of a New Beneficence,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune , January 18, 1883, p. 6; “A Woman’s Exchange. Rooms Secured in the Phoenix Insurance Building,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune , January 19, 1883).

Opened on February 1, 1883, the Cincinnati Women’s Exchange became an immediate success. As its inventory increased, its store featured a variety of items, including “hand painted china plates,” dresses, babies’ caps, afghans, robes, pottery, paintings, and “the best of bread, pies, sponge and fruit cakes and Nantucket cookies,” as well as chicken salad (“The Women’s Exchange,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune , February 1,1883, p. 8; “At the Women’s Exchange,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, February 10, 1883, p. 2; “Women’s Exchange,” Cincinnati Commercial Gazette , February 14, 1883, p. 8).

The success of the Cincinnati Women’s Exchange occasioned a parallel enterprise, the “Women’s Exchange Lunch-Room.” Opened a year later, in February 1884, the lunchroom operated daily from 12 Noon to 3 p.m. A reporter was very impressed with his visit, relating how his party “received a warm, but not an obtrusive welcome, and were invited to a table with spotless linen, and every article needed for its appointment, spread before us in perfect order. The bill of fare was well selected, and at a reasonable price. It was served promptly and with careful attention. Every article was of the best quality, and the coffee and stewed oysters were admirable. As we glanced over the room we saw some of our most prominent clergymen, physicians, lawyers, bankers, merchants, and young people from our schools, whose parents were delighted to know they would receive a wholesome, well prepared lunch in a place free from all undesirable influence” (“Women’s Exchange Lunch-Room,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune , February 9, 1884, p. 7).

The success of the Women’s Exchange lunchroom was partly due to Miss Helen G. Stewart. Raised in an upper-class family, she and her two sisters — Mary J. and Eliza C. — were the daughters of Charles Stewart, owner of a pork-packing plant. In the mid-1880s, his business “failed for a large amount, involving his own fortune and the inheritance of his daughters.” In a 1903 Cincinnati Post interview, Helen Stewart explained that “‘When father lost his money he was an old man — 70 years of age, — too old to build a new business, and my sisters and I were compelled to face the harsh realities of life from which he had so tenderly shielded us in our youth.’” Subsequently, Helen accepted a position “as manager of the Women’s Exchange Restaurant” (“Three Women Won Success in Business,” part 1, Cincinnati Post , June 23, 1903, p. 4).

In the late 1880s, Helen and her two sisters struck out on their own, opening a small lunchroom called “Miss Stewart’s Restaurant” on the fourth and fifth floors of a building in the heart of Cincinnati’s business district on West Fourth Street, near Vine. Working sometimes sixteen-hour days, the sisters made the lunchroom a great success. At some point, the restaurant became known as the Glencairn, named after a line of poetry by Robert Burns, whose Scottish heritage the Stewart sisters shared.

“Within a couple of years our business had outgrown our quarters,” Helen related to the Cincinnati Post reporter, leading them to open the Glencairn in Cincinnati’s brand new Chamber of Commerce Building on the southwest corner of Fourth and Vine Streets in February 1889. Their enterprise attracted attention even in Chicago, where a Tribune reporter reviewed that as “there was to be a large restaurant connected with it [the Chamber building], the Misses Stewart boldly applied for it. They were backed by many of the business-men of the city, who had known them in their days of wealth and been impressed by their ability as business-women” (“Three Women Won Success in Business,” part 2, Cincinnati Post , June 24, 1903, p. 4; “Success of Three Sisters: Reverses in Fortune Induce Them to Open a Lunch Room,” Chicago Daily Tribune , May 3, 1896, p. 46; “On Change. Movement on Foot to Invite President-Elect Harrison to Visit Cincinnati. Auspicious Opening of the Glencairn,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune , February 7, 1889).

Sadly, the Chamber of Commerce Building was completely destroyed in a devastating fire that started on the upper floors of the building on Tuesday evening, January 10, 1911. The Glencairn, operating in the basement of the building where the twisted iron girders and heavy stone of the building’s walls had collapsed, was a total loss. Fortunately, since the lunchroom was only open during afternoon hours, its staff was not in the building at the time of the fire. The Glencairn, suffering a loss estimated to be $10,000, never reopened (“6 Missing in Fire Believed Dead. Heat Balks Search for Victims in ‘Change Ruins,” Cincinnati Post , January 11, 1911, p. 1).

The Cincinnati Women’s Exchange, as well as the Glencairn lunch restaurant owned by the Stewart sisters, helped to expand opportunities for women in the late 1800s. When asked by the Cincinnati Post reporter in 1903 if she witnessed “‘any difference between the status of the business woman 17 years ago and the business woman of today,’” Helen Stewart replied, “‘Very much. The world — especially he world of women-kind — is growing broader . . . when forced by circumstances to take part in the world’s activities she should not be obliged to spend her energy fighting against public opinion.’”

Changes in women’s opportunities came very slowly; however, they depended upon the courage and persistence of women like the Stewart sisters (“Three Women Won Success in Business,” part 2, Cincinnati Post , June 24, 1903, p. 4).

Paul A. Tenkotte, PhD is editor of the “Our Rich History” weekly series and Professor of History and Gender Studies at Northern Kentucky University (NKU). He can be contacted at tenkottep@nku.edu . Tenkotte also serves as Director of the ORVILLE Project (Ohio River Valley Innovation Library and Learning Enrichment). For more information see https://orvillelearning.org/

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