By Rosie Moore
In 1886, thirty-four yeas before women in the U.S. earned the right to vote, Avon’s founder, David H. McConnell, helped give them the chance to earn an independent income. He didn’t set out to create a beauty company. In fact, McConnell was a traveling book salesperson who offered fragrance samples as an additional perk to his female customers. He saw that these women were more interested in the free perfume than the books. Since women had passion for his products and loved networking with other women, McConnell was inspired to recruit them as Sales Representatives. From a small New York City office, McConnell himself mixed the company’s first fragrances. This began Avon’s long history of empowering women around the globe.
95 years before the first woman was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court…
77 years before the first woman traveled into space…
76 years before the first woman took the reins of a Fortune 500 company…
34 years before women in the U.S. had the right to vote…
17 years before the first woman won the Nobel Prize…
Avon has been empowering women for 130 years. I got these interesting facts from Google on the computer and it immediately made me think of years gone by.
My grandmother sold Avon products back when I was growing up. Due to a bout of spinal meningitis, which left her an invalid, she walked with a crutch most of her life. Later on, she was confined to a wheelchair. Unable to go door-to-door, her telephone was the means of selling her products and I was the delivery person for her customers. She got the idea of selling from her young married days when she sold Watkins Products door to door, walking with her crutch, and she did very well at it, receiving many awards for her work. She made many friends with her telephone contacts and became a number-one seller for Avon, back in the days when they sold mostly talc powder and fragrances.
It became a normal enterprise for me, also, when I came of age. I sold it for many years up North and many years here. The holidays are the best time to sell and give these precious commodities, for they sell everything from A to Z and no one has to be ashamed of giving or receiving an Avon gift.
Thought for the day: The best way to show our gratitude to God and the people is to accept everything with joy. A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love. Mother Theresa
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