Encyclopedia Of Detroit

Also known as the Exchange for Woman’s Work, this organization was one of a network of societies throughout the country set up to help support women in need. Women who were widowed, or whose circumstances were reduced, could not easily work outside the home in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Women’s Exchange movement began as early as 1832 by philanthropic women who sought to assist these women. Women could work in their homes making baked goods, painting china, doing needlecraft and even taking in laundry, and the Women’s Exchange would sell their product or service for a small commission of 10-15 percent.

The Detroit Women’s Exchange was established in 1889 in the East Jefferson Avenue home of Mrs. T.A. McGraw. The group’s first official location was inside the D.C. Jones Flower Shop on Woodward Avenue. Their next move, in 1891 to a YMCA building on Grand River Avenue, allowed them to establish a lunchroom, a popular way for many of the exchanges to support themselves. There were several more moves including a lunchroom in Sparling & Co. Dry Goods on Woodward near Michigan Avenue, where up to 300 lunches a day were served. In 1892 the Women’s Exchange merged with the Decorative Arts Society of Detroit.

The success of the Detroit Women’s Exchange allowed it to establish its own building that opened for business on February 1, 1916. By this time the Exchange had 365 consignors who were benefitting from the sale of their products or services. Architectural firm Smith, Hinchman and Grylls was hired to unify two buildings, side by side on Adams Street at Grand Circus Park. They designed a stuccoed, half-timbered façade, modeled after a 1621 English Butcher’s Guild of Herefordshire, and provided it with the necessary facilities such as a large kitchen, restaurant, needlework sales department, laundry, catering service and rooms on the third floor that could be rented. A fire two weeks after the opening did serious damage to the second and third floors but the structure was quickly repaired.

Typical Exchange’s activities over the next decade included catering for a 700-guest reception, making over 2,000 cakes for Mrs. James Couzens to donate to charity, and hosting a luncheon for the Prince of Wales visiting Henry and Clara Ford.

As more employment opportunities for women, employer-paid life insurance, and social security benefits became available, the Women’s Exchanges slowly went out of business, though there are 20 in existence today. The Detroit Women’s Exchange ended in 1942 and the building has been occupied by various groups and agencies, including for a time Cheli’s Chili Bar before being replaced by another restaurant.