Salley's growing notoriety as a successful businesswoman
Salley reflects on the reception her business received as she gained increasing notoriety as a successful businesswoman.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Eulalie Salley, September 15, 1973. Interview G-0054. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- CONSTANCE MYERS:
-
Back to your real estate business. I'm wondering if you incurred any
antagonism in the town by being a bold woman going into business?
- EULALIE SALLEY:
-
Oh, my, yes. All the other agents fought me. One man said,
"You've taken bread out of my children's mouth." I
said, "If youbetter man than that, I'm
sorry for your children. Better get busy and do a little
better."
- CONSTANCE MYERS:
-
Tell some more incidents of discrimination, of antagonism.
- EULALIE SALLEY:
-
Every man in town turned against me and a lot of my family were against
me. They just thought that I had disgraced the family. They thought it
was outrageous, that only bad women, prostitutes, were suffragists.
- CONSTANCE MYERS:
-
But as far as your being in business was
concerned--this is what I'm thinking about right
now--were you discriminated against in a social
way, in a business way?
- EULALIE SALLEY:
-
As far as social, it didn't make any difference because I had a certain
standing anyway. My family had been here always. I didn't care anything
about that.
- CONSTANCE MYERS:
-
Did you have any trouble, for instance, with banks, other business
concerns besides real estate?
- EULALIE SALLEY:
-
No.
- CONSTANCE MYERS:
-
They dealt with you on an equitable basis?
- EULALIE SALLEY:
-
Yes. Mr. Dibble, who was the president of the bank here, the largest bank
. . .
- CONSTANCE MYERS:
-
Which bank is that?
- EULALIE SALLEY:
-
The Bank of Western Carolina it was called then. It's no longer in
existence. He was president of it. He was a very progressive old fellow.
He was a nice man. He helped me a great deal and he'd lend money. There
was no discrimination against me in the banks in a
business way but the real estate men hated me like a rattle snake. I
knew it was just jealousy but I thought I had a right to compete with
them.
- CONSTANCE MYERS:
-
Did you
[unclear]
quite as well in a profit-making sense?
- EULALIE SALLEY:
-
I did better than most of them.
- CONSTANCE MYERS:
-
Do you think that the fact that you were a woman gave you a curiosity
value when people were looking for real estate?
- EULALIE SALLEY:
-
Yes, I was like the ring-tailed tiger in the circus. I was a curiosity
Whoever heard of a woman real estate agent? Whoever heard of a woman who
had the brass to get up in public and speak? That's outrageous to get up
before the public and speak. I said, well, why not? Why am I disgraced
because I'm married?
- CONSTANCE MYERS:
-
How about your reception to your being the first business woman in Aiken
on a state level? Were there other enterprising women in the state?
- EULALIE SALLEY:
-
There were. I was not the first one. Susan Frost of . . .
- CONSTANCE MYERS:
-
Of Charleston.
- EULALIE SALLEY:
-
. . . was the first woman in Charleston. She was an unattractive
spinster from Charleston and she was not of a very
good disposition. She was a very smart woman and she could meet any of
them on equal terms.
- CONSTANCE MYERS:
-
Could you?
- EULALIE SALLEY:
-
I think so. I tried anyway.