6   WOMEN IN LIFE INSURANCE EDITION; INSURANCE ADVOCATE   January 27, 1923

and which, all to often, make women their victims. It is one field in which your promotion does not await a death or other vacancy. You launch at once into a business of your own, without the necessity of capital and with no overheads. No other field offers a greater independence of time, activity and locality than does insurance. One point that must not be lost in passing—the advancing years spell for the insurance woman no dull

times. So often age brings a charm to woman, and her ability, flavored with the spice of maturity and experience, increases rather than de-creases with the passing of years. Yet in general business, if not infrequently happens that favor rests with the younger rather than with the older woman applicant for a position. Insurance plays no favorites, admits of no age discrimination and no sex discrimination. The fact that a man or a woman sells insurance—or that it is sold to a man or a woman is merely a coincidence. Your only pre-requisite is scientific salesmanship, which, to my mind, is the application of common sense principles to the task in hand. Your necessary accompaniments are an absolute assurance and enthusiasm, borne of a knowledge that you are extending a service of one of the strongest financial institutions of the country.

In closing let me say that the opportunity for women in the field, to-day, December, 1922, are unlimited. The demand for the trained man and woman is so great that universities all over the country are adding courses in life insurance salesmanship. For the men and women who cannot avail themselves of these courses, many insurance companies, among which I am proud to number my own have established courses of training for new agents—courses which give a thorough grounding in the principles of insurance and salesmanship, supply the new agent with leads, help her with propositions and give in every way the benefit of years of experience and achievement in the business.

The business knows no hard times. This is a point which merits very serious consideration. In the business lull from which we are emerging, insurance was one of the very few businesses that did not suffer

one of the very few businesses where salaries were not cut, and where forces were not reduced. Quite to the contrary, many agents in the agency, with which I am connected, received higher compensation than at any time in their career. This is not theory, this is actual fact. And when you combine these facts with the present business outlook—with optimism sup-planting pessimism; with a country facing forward, with developments on every side—in commerce, in transportation, in agriculture, in labor,

can I be accused of being overly enthusiastic when I say that the field of possibility was never greater, and the time never more opportune?

There is no field that offers greater inducements to a woman. Success is absolutely a personal matter—you are the "architect of your future, the sculptor of your destiny." Your opportunity is everywhere, and everyone is your opportunity.

THE BROADENING INFLUENCE
OF INSURANCE.

By Ellen M. Putnam of National Life
Insurance Company at
Rochester, N. Y.

There is a great field for the woman underwriter to write business among women. A woman is more easily approached for insurance by a woman than by a man as a general rule. With the increasing number of self-supporting women this presents a field which could occupy one's entire time. But it is not necessary for the

ELLEN M. PUTNAM

woman to confine herself to this field, there are great opportunities among business and professional men most of whom would as soon talk insurance with a woman as with a man.

I became a member of the Life Insurance profession because I thought it offered one of the greatest fields of usefulness; because or Its broadening influence due to the meeting of different kinds of people and the necessity of keeping informed on many subjects and lines of work; because of the freedom of one's time; and the pleasantness of working out of doors a good deal.

I have been in the profession three years and credit what success I have had to my great and sincere belief in life insurance; to the careful training and excellent help given me by the General Agent with whom I am working; to consistent study and effort; and to my sense of humor and optimism which keeps me from getting discouraged.

By Annie M. F. Sherman, Manager,
Women's Dept, Massachusetts
Mutual Life at Boston.

When a General Agent of one of the big New York companies suggested that I take up insurance work, my reply was prompt and positive: "Oh no, I don't think that is nice work for a lady." He being a born insurance manager and evidently seeing possibilities that my youth and inex

perience did not discern, persisted, with the result I took up life insurance, literally having it thrust upon me.

My first experience, however, served to convince me that I was right—"It was not nice work for a lady," for calling on a prominent business man, who felt under obligation to me for publicity, which as a newspaper-woman I had made possible, he told me point blank that he "liked manly men and womenly women" and he did "not like the woman who buttonholed a man to talk insurance." Wounded to the quick I rushed home, fully re-solved never to mention insurance again, but after the first hurt was over and I thought about the inter: view, I decided that insurance was a good proposition, whether presented by a woman or by a man. If my prospect objected to the novelty of a woman agent, why after all the big thing was to get him insured and it was not at all essential that I should write the business. The same general agent who prevailed on me to take up the work, agreed with my point of view and I introduced him to my prospect, who received him most cordially and an application for $100,-000 was the result. For the benefit of any woman who reads this, most of my business to-day is written on the lives of women.

With this baptism of fire I became an insurance woman.

Women in the insurance business having long since ceased to be a novelty, you may wonder when I made my debut. It was the summer of '97, when I was "twisted" from my career of a newspaper woman and quite determinedly placed in the insurance world by a knidly destiny, since the intervening years have been very happy ones, despite the disappointments that are the natural lot of the insurance solicitor, which however have not lessened my enthusiasm for life insurance, or for the opportunities it holds for women who have initiative and persistency.

The destiny which shaped my ends, which I seemingly would have rough hewn, made me a small part in the organization of a big New York company, which part I endured having already accepted a post as special writer on one of the leading Sunday newspapers. It took another drastic

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