0:00

Hey, Dream listeners. If you like this podcast,

0:02

you're going to love the book. Yeah.

0:04

I wrote a book. It's called Selling the Dream,

0:07

and it's coming out March twelfth, twenty twenty

0:09

four, on Atria. It's

0:11

about all of your favorite characters from

0:13

MLMs and some that you've never even

0:15

heard of. I hope check it

0:18

out. Previously

0:20

on the Dream, I think

0:23

there are some FBI men in

0:25

the room. I

0:27

went, oh, far out?

0:30

Is it really? Thinking

0:32

correctly in America is

0:34

supposed to lead to prosperity.

0:38

I knew it was a It was trappings for

0:40

a Ponzi scheme. How in the

0:42

hell did I not see this?

0:45

Eventually there will be a peasant

0:47

in Bangladesh who can't come up

0:49

with the money, and the game will

0:51

die. I knew that multi

0:53

level marketing has codified

0:56

into an actual business.

0:58

The deceptions, the delusions,

1:01

the manipulations that the

1:03

Airplane Game introduced.

1:13

All right, pulling into a wasso just

1:18

past the bone air the

1:20

Bone air Motel. Oh

1:22

boy, this is where

1:24

you gotta slow down, start going forty

1:27

because it's a speed trap. Pulling

1:30

into town. Open

1:34

your maps app, look up Flint,

1:36

Michigan. Now zoom out. Two ticks

1:39

and look directly to the left of Flint, you'll

1:41

see a bunch of faint boxes township

1:43

lines to the west between Flint and the next

1:45

noticeable town over Owasso. This

1:48

stretch of no man's land is where I'm from.

1:52

Thought I saw a yard sale, but it was just junk

1:55

in the yard, all

1:59

right. And now we're pulling up to what

2:01

is this called Bentley Grill? Didn't used

2:03

to be called that. My uncle used to work

2:05

there, Salem Lutheran

2:08

School, Dollar General,

2:11

the Library, Carl Minke's

2:14

barbershop. You

2:17

may have actually seen this part of the country in b roll

2:19

footage from Michael Moore films. You

2:21

know, tiny rural homes on dirt roads,

2:24

with rusted out cars in the front yard and chicken

2:27

coops and decrepit barns leaning over out

2:29

back. Michael Moore is fine,

2:31

I guess, but he's from here, so I've always

2:33

been kind of suspicious of his ogling, like,

2:36

ooh, look at all the poor people in their natural

2:38

habitat. Yeah, we're poor,

2:40

you know that, Michael. But we're

2:42

a lot of other stuff too. Technically,

2:45

none of my extended family's actual homes

2:47

appeared in those movies, but they might as well have.

2:50

As far as I'm concerned, those shots are

2:52

of us. My family's

2:54

lived around here for a long time. My

2:57

dad's mom, Ruth, comes from an old English

2:59

family. It's been around these parts for a few

3:01

centuries. My dad's dad, his

3:03

family mostly came over from Prussia in the

3:06

eighteen eighties. That's what the ship manifests

3:08

say, Prussia. As a preteen,

3:10

I'd dig through the piles of junk in the garage

3:12

on our family farm, and I'd pore over

3:15

my great great grandfather's elementary school

3:17

textbooks written in German. They were

3:19

right next to some giant, dusty glass jugs

3:21

of dark brown homemade dandelion wine.

3:24

I never tried it. My parents

3:26

got married here too, right out of high school, and

3:28

then left brann Arbor, but came back to a waso

3:31

When my dad finished school. He became

3:33

a dentist, and when I was ten, we

3:35

moved out to the family farm. There's

3:37

Kerwood Castle everybody,

3:41

James Oliver Kerwood's writing space. It's

3:44

got a couple turrets. Awasso

3:50

is famous among Awasson's for being

3:52

the home of James Oliver Kerwood, author

3:54

of The Bear, a nineteen sixteen book

3:57

originally titled The Grizzly King, which

3:59

was adapted into a mostly silent

4:01

French film in nineteen eighty eight. There's

4:04

an annual festival in his honor, the Kurwood

4:06

Festival, which is a carnival plopped

4:09

on Main Street, great beer tent, and

4:11

three on three basketball tournament. We're

4:13

also the birthplace of Thomas E. Dewey of Dewey

4:16

Defeats Truman infamy. He didn't

4:18

beat Truman, but almost. We're

4:20

the home of the Real Polar Express, whatever

4:23

that means. And Paul Spaniola,

4:25

the world's only six time world

4:28

pipe smoking champion, was born

4:30

in a Wassa, Michigan, and

4:32

growing up out here felt kind of like being in

4:34

a time warp, partly because no

4:36

one in my family throws anything away. So

4:39

yes, there are those old cars and rusty

4:41

road to tillers lying around the front yard, just

4:43

like you see in a Michael Moore movie, along

4:45

with one hundred year old tools and books and

4:47

toys and clothing and furniture

4:50

beds that I know more than a few of

4:52

my grandparents died in. This

4:55

was a town slow and sleepy enough

4:57

that the half hour trip to the mall in Flint

5:00

felt like a big production. In the

5:02

nineteen nineties, we still had a canning cellar

5:04

and a milkman in the nineties.

5:07

The nineteen nineties, no

5:09

one bothered to lay cable lines. For the few of us

5:11

who lived out here, we burned our trash

5:14

in a barrel because there was no garbage service,

5:16

even though you could see the county landfill

5:18

from our front yard. In place of cell

5:20

phones, we had a pair of binoculars on the windowsill.

5:23

We could watch what was happening next door at my grandma's

5:25

house, or across the field a mile away

5:27

at some strangers. Anyway,

5:30

I'm not here to reminisce. I'm here

5:32

because my homeland has another weird quality,

5:35

one that I'm constantly reminded of through Facebook

5:37

and at family get togethers. This

5:40

place is a hotbed for multi level

5:42

marketing. I'm back here to

5:44

find out why. And more

5:46

than that, I'm back because I want

5:48

to walk into my friends and love one's homes and

5:51

ask them the question that pops into my head every

5:53

single time they try to pitch me some new

5:55

miracle essential oil or a

5:58

makeup kit or you know, tell me about

6:00

the key to financial freedom. I'm

6:02

here to ask them what

6:04

the fuck, and I'm terrified.

6:11

I'm Jane Marie and this is the dream episode

6:13

two Women's Work.

6:23

I told you that over the course of this season, we'd

6:25

be looking at MLMs from the bottom of

6:27

the pyramid shaped business model thing,

6:29

all the way up to the top, where a few people

6:32

sit counting bags of money they're making

6:34

off of people below them. It works

6:36

for the top because the majority of their

6:38

workforce is at the bottom, including

6:40

members of my family. We've been

6:42

trying to sell this stuff to each other and to

6:44

everyone around us for decades. Take

6:47

my aunt Amy. Over the years,

6:49

Amy's sold Mary Kay Malaluka,

6:52

Protandem, Herbal Life,

6:55

Ladhara, Young

6:57

Living Oils.

7:00

I think that's it. I'm not sure it is actually

7:03

and working on this project, I've realized most

7:05

of my friends here have had experience with MLMs.

7:08

One reason why is pretty obvious. Awaso

7:11

is poor. According to the latest census,

7:13

twenty five percent of people here lived below

7:16

the poverty line. There was once

7:18

a thriving economy here a while ago,

7:20

like early last century,

7:23

Oaso and Corona were bedroom communities

7:25

for the auto industry in Flint. In

7:27

the seventies, when I was born. About half

7:29

the people around here worked for the car industry.

7:32

Even my grandparents, along with their soybean

7:35

and winter wheat farm, had a trucking company

7:37

that shipped parts for GM. But

7:39

then you know what happened. The bottom fell out

7:42

in the eighties. As plants closed, people

7:44

would scramble. I remember the

7:46

summer of fifth grade a big GM plant

7:49

shut down, and everyone was trying to get jobs

7:51

at Saturn in Tennessee. When

7:53

school started back up in the fall, it

7:55

was like the rapture. It happened. Just oof

7:58

gone today is

8:00

half the size it was then, and almost

8:02

half of those who remain live in poverty.

8:05

If you live here, you live with risk of

8:07

the bottom falling out, of racking up debt

8:09

to keep your house or your family together. Sonocal

8:13

gas stations still going strong, great. And

8:16

it's not just that a wahso is poor. It's

8:19

that being a girl here there's no clear

8:21

path to a career or an escape.

8:24

Guys they at least grow up believing that their uncle

8:26

or their dad can get them a job on the line

8:29

or on the farm, or at the tool and die shop

8:31

that supplies stuff to the

8:33

guys on the line or on the farm. But

8:36

being a girl here, the advice was Number

8:38

one, don't get pregnant. Not

8:41

sure what you're going to do after you don't get pregnant,

8:43

but whatever it is, it won't be an option if

8:45

you're pregnant. Number two, Okay,

8:48

so you're pregnant, definitely get

8:50

married to anyone and make sure

8:52

the grandmas are cool with watching the kids for free

8:55

while you work on Number three, securing

8:57

some sort of job or training that you can fall back

9:00

on when you inevitably become a single

9:02

mom, which is what happens if

9:04

you get pregnant. I

9:07

felt weird saying this, so I called around

9:09

to other girlfriends of mine who also

9:11

left a Wasso, and they were like, yeah,

9:14

that's what they told us. While

9:17

the population of most communities around the country

9:19

has naturally grown by five percent over

9:21

the last ten years, awassos

9:24

has lost five percent. A lot

9:26

of us leave. So that's

9:28

really what's on my mind when I'm sitting in my apartment

9:30

in California flipping through Instagram

9:33

seeing a post from an a Waston friend begging

9:35

all of us, her friends, her followers

9:37

to help her sell like ten more pairs

9:39

of banana leggings in an hour so

9:42

she can earn some bonus. It makes

9:44

me feel an embarrassing mix of pity

9:46

and shame. But driving

9:48

around here, I get it. Of course she's

9:50

hustling. I would be doing it too.

9:53

Around here, you've got to try something.

9:56

And King's Corner Market used to be called

9:58

quick Check. They'd let me buy for my

10:00

parents there when I was like ten. And

10:04

now I see Amy's house. It's

10:10

yellow, So,

10:19

like I say, Amy is who I want to

10:21

talk to first, Maya. Amy is my dad's

10:23

youngest sister and she grew up next door

10:25

to us on the farm with my grandparents. Amy

10:28

has a lot of MLM experience, yes,

10:30

but she's also been a successful hairdresser,

10:33

an MMA fighter, a wife

10:36

thrice over, and she's currently the high school

10:38

swim coach and drama club director.

10:41

They're making me nervous, Yeah, they make

10:43

everybody nervous. They get so close to the board

10:45

that the whole audience goes and

10:48

then I laugh. She was

10:50

just six when I was born. The generations

10:53

in my family are very very short,

10:55

babies, having babies and whatnot. Amy

10:58

and I were super close growing up. I

11:00

idolized her. She was my very

11:02

favorite playmate and she has

11:04

memories of going to direct sales parties

11:07

at our aunts and cousins farmhouses back

11:09

in the seventies and eighties. Mostly

11:11

Avon, but there were others thrown in. I

11:13

remember for the jewelry parties. I remember

11:15

it's still smelling like an Avon type

11:18

of situation where they all were

11:20

wearing Avon and then the heavy

11:22

eyeshadow and like the heavy liner

11:25

and that sort of thing, and then the hairspray.

11:27

You could always smell the hair spray because it was always

11:29

some form of plate, the AquaNet or

11:31

something, some form of an inexpensive

11:33

hairspray and tons of it. Sarah

11:40

Coventry was another big direct sales company

11:43

with our extended family. Sarah Coventry

11:45

was a jewelry brand, one of those party

11:48

based ones where a bunch of women get together in

11:50

a house and look at catalogs, kind

11:52

of like a Tupperware party. They would have just

11:54

a few pieces of jewelry that

11:56

were still, you know, in their boxes, and

11:58

they would pass them around. Basically, I

12:00

think probably most of them didn't have enough

12:03

money to really invest in like the display part

12:05

of it. And there was always some food, usually

12:07

a lot of jello. I remember the jello a lot,

12:09

and then like those little roll up or

12:12

derbs with the cream cheese and the meat

12:14

and the What I remember

12:16

too is that like our house

12:19

was conservative as far as

12:21

decorating was concerned, and these

12:23

other ladies lived in

12:25

houses that were gilded, and

12:28

they had have a lot of mirrors, and

12:31

a lot of the sculpted shag

12:34

carpet in very deep

12:37

and odd colors. I

12:39

remember faux flowers kind of around

12:41

the room. A lot of faux ivy things

12:43

like that, Yes, a lot of a lot of the faux

12:45

flowers. A lot of black velvet

12:47

paintings, yes, black velvet

12:49

paintings of horses. No clowns though,

12:52

actually oh there was a clown. A clown.

12:54

I don't have a babe's house. Yes,

12:56

it was an ant babe's house, and she

12:58

had red carpet. I'd forgotten

13:01

some of this. Yes, people join

13:03

MLMs out of desperation to try to

13:05

restart their lives, but also they

13:07

trained to have fun. These were wonderful

13:10

gatherings, big to Doo's in a town

13:12

where there wasn't much to do, and everyone

13:14

looked forward to getting together. I

13:16

remember one time they were all together at one

13:19

of these parties, and the one

13:21

lady comes in and because she was

13:23

the one that was there to sell stuff, she

13:26

had gone to someone's house to

13:28

have a party. But she was standing

13:31

at the front door and ringing

13:33

the doorbell. And they

13:36

used to wear nylons inside their

13:38

pants, like their polyester pants.

13:41

And I was at the time. It didn't make

13:43

sense to me that you would wear a pair of control top

13:45

pantyhose underneath your polyester pants.

13:48

I thought that that not only does it sound weird

13:50

when you walk, but it would feel

13:52

really awful, you know, like spanks.

13:55

You mean, uh huh. So I

13:57

think that that's what these ladies did, was

13:59

use the control top panties or control

14:01

top pantyhose as like spanks.

14:04

So her story was that she was

14:06

standing at someone's house middle of the

14:08

day or whatever, and she was ringing the doorbell,

14:12

and so she realized that there was a pair of pantyhose

14:14

stuck inside her pants. Between

14:17

her pantyhose and the

14:19

pants. She bent down and took

14:21

a hold of the pan the pantyhose toe,

14:24

and then started pulling it out like

14:27

a magician, we kind

14:29

of, you know. And so when the person

14:31

answered the door, she's standing there with

14:33

these pantyhose in her hands

14:36

and her pant leg halfway up and she's

14:38

still pulling pantyhose out of her pants.

14:41

And they had all found this

14:43

so hilarious that they were all laughing so

14:45

hard they were crying, And I just remember sitting

14:47

there and watching all these women in

14:50

this state of like hysteria

14:52

because of the story, and like how

14:55

warm that was. Like that was one of the things

14:57

that was really cool about those parties was they were always

14:59

really warm and really happy. And I've

15:02

never experienced that again with any

15:04

of the parties that I hosted or anything like that.

15:06

They just were that group. And

15:09

that's one thing that like that makes me a little bit

15:11

sad because they they're like almost all

15:13

of them are dead at this

15:15

point, but that

15:17

one it makes me want to cry. Even they

15:20

were so sweet and so fun.

15:23

We kids, we loved these women, loved

15:25

the excuse to hang out and laugh as

15:27

opposed to sitting in a basement shucking

15:29

black walnuts, which is something else women

15:31

around here are gathered together for My

15:34

great grandma Max scene Amy's grandma

15:36

started selling avon in the fifties, and

15:38

you could always rely on Grandma Max for some

15:40

sort of direct sales product in your stocking,

15:43

and leftover samples she'd leave for the kids,

15:45

which piled up in a drawer over generations.

15:48

They've only recently run out after Amy's

15:50

own daughters used up the dregs. I

15:53

always wanted to play makeup,

15:56

so when you were born, you

15:58

were like at this doll that I had to

16:00

play with, and you were always willing.

16:03

So when we would play makeup, it

16:05

was like the makeup that we got

16:08

from from Grandma. Most of the time

16:10

it was just the little, teeny tiny lipsticks, and

16:12

so that made it more real because our hands were

16:14

little and our faces were little,

16:16

so it felt like we were using like big

16:19

things. They felt good, and they smelled

16:21

that certain smell, and I'm not sure if it

16:23

was because they were getting old or

16:25

if they all smelled that way. And I

16:28

remember we always ended up with the

16:30

ones that were kind of the tan or

16:32

beige color being left over because

16:35

we didn't want those. We wanted red lips.

16:38

Anyway, they made everything seem

16:40

real. But we actually took this

16:43

one step further. We weren't just makeup

16:45

artists. We were business women. I

16:48

remember playing like store too, because

16:50

we could use the catalogs and the and

16:52

the order sheets and stuff

16:54

and like setting up a desk with the

16:57

phone yep, yep. And we were

16:59

avon ladies. Yeah,

17:01

and we would call and make sure that everybody

17:03

was, you know, good on their orders. Amy's

17:07

mom my. Grandma Ruth was not really

17:09

into the makeup and jewelry scene. Gramma

17:12

Ruth is, in a word, frugal. Some

17:15

might say miserly. Others

17:17

might say she's a hoarder. I say

17:19

she's all three. One direct sales

17:21

company in particular, was completely

17:23

blacklisted in Ruth's house. We

17:26

didn't do tupperware parties. We didn't go to tupperware

17:28

parties. We didn't purchase tupperware. We didn't We

17:30

didn't have any tupperware at the house. She

17:32

used reused old containers, so

17:35

that was tupperware was waste of time

17:37

to her and money. So because

17:41

storage containers are free,

17:44

because all your food comes in a storage container

17:46

already, and she could just wash it

17:48

and reuse it. Because she still

17:51

does that with like ziploc

17:53

bags and tidfoil.

17:55

Yep. So she's not wrong, No,

17:59

she's not so. And she's very efficient

18:01

and has a lot of money. I think

18:03

to show for it because of those behaviors

18:06

her whole life. So

18:08

she uh, she was right about

18:10

all those things. Grandma,

18:41

did I take my shoes off? Okay,

18:50

don't get up, that

18:52

would go to fan worship. Just

18:54

go to the canvas

18:58

right here for this all night. Now. I'm

19:01

visiting my grandma Ruth to ask her about

19:03

her mom's time as an avon. Lady. Ruth

19:06

doesn't really wear makeup or get gussied

19:08

up for anything other than church, so it's always

19:11

been funny to me that her mom was so into

19:13

it. There

19:16

are two houses on the property a quarter

19:19

mile apart, along with a couple of barns.

19:21

Both properties are quite modest. The

19:23

one we're in my Grandma Ruth and Grandpa

19:26

Bill, who now sits in the living room with dementia

19:28

watching Bob Ross. They built this

19:30

house as teenagers when they first started

19:32

their family. They put the basement

19:35

in first and lived in it with their

19:37

growing brood, which would eventually number six

19:39

kids, while they finished the upstairs.

19:42

Can I have your name, Ruth Golmbiski?

19:45

Thank you. Can you just tell me a little bit about

19:47

yourself? I know a lot about you because you're my grandma.

19:50

I live in Cruna, Michigan. I've

19:52

been mostly a stay at home wife, although there

19:55

was a stint when I did some truck driving.

19:58

And I'm eighty one years old and

20:01

I enjoy everything,

20:03

and I love every morning. Even

20:07

for Ruth, direct sales were a part of daily life

20:09

for as long as she can remember, and she

20:11

says it was for one reason, the same

20:13

one MLMs count on to power their sales.

20:16

She'd rather buy from people she knows. I'm

20:18

sure that when you go to

20:20

the grocery store and you stand and you read about

20:23

something that you don't

20:26

see the value that you can be introduced

20:29

to by a salesperson.

20:33

But I do know you can introduce yourself

20:35

to products that do work. But

20:38

I think that this other way is better

20:40

because you have someone that educates

20:42

you, and there

20:44

are things you miss when you're just reading it. The

20:46

thing is, my grandma Ruth never signed up

20:48

to sell these things, but she

20:51

has signed up for the discount. She's

20:53

careful and sentimental. And

20:55

one of the companies that I remember when I

20:57

was young was the Jewel Tea Company. And

21:00

I remember that when I was a child,

21:02

when they used to come to my grandmother's house

21:05

and they were a good company. I

21:08

do have some pieces of hauled

21:11

dishware that came from them

21:13

that I remember. So that was like a door

21:15

to door kind of sales, kind

21:17

of slutely, and the gentleman

21:20

that I remember selling it became

21:22

a family friend, and so

21:24

that made it kind of precious.

21:27

This was seventy five years ago, all

21:29

this sitting around with the jewel tea guy. But

21:32

I've eaten off those exact plates. And

21:35

the reason my grandma still has those plates is

21:37

because she learned the value of a dollar really

21:40

early on. I went

21:42

to work when I was nine years old. The first

21:44

time I went to work at a

21:46

neighbor lady's house. She was crippled

21:48

up with arthritis. She couldn't

21:51

comb her own hair, and

21:53

there were many many things that I did for that lady

21:56

that she just couldn't do for herself, and

21:58

though I was very young, I

22:01

could help her with her needs. I

22:04

made a quarter, I think an hour for

22:06

the lady that I worked for, and

22:10

then from there I went to work with another

22:12

lady at another lady's house. And when I

22:14

was ten years old, I had gotten to the point where

22:16

I was out picking strawberries and a patch

22:19

from eight in the morning, one hour

22:21

after noon, and five o'clock in the afternoon.

22:24

If I had to pick strawberries that day, that's

22:26

how the day went. So when you're

22:28

poor like that, you learn to scrape money off

22:30

the walls, and you

22:32

know what's there if you're looking. When

22:34

I was a child, I didn't think I was suffering.

22:36

But when you wear cardboard

22:39

in your shoes because you got holes in the

22:41

bottom to school, and your

22:43

mother's cut off nylons for socks,

22:47

and on Christmas you have hamburgers,

22:50

but you're still happy. Your

22:52

stomach's full and you're happy.

23:02

I always told myself that I could do better

23:05

with my money than some other people could. Without

23:07

naming anyone.

23:09

My parents had a difficult time, and

23:12

I always felt like I could do better with my money,

23:15

you know, as I got older and

23:18

she did. Ruth and my grandpa scrimped

23:20

and saved, never spent a dollar. They didn't

23:23

actually possess. Rumor has

23:25

it they're rich now, but you

23:27

can't tell looking at them, or at the house

23:29

or the yard. Ruth's parents,

23:32

my great grandma Maxine and her husband Leo, did

23:34

have a difficult time, and I hope my grandma

23:37

forgives me and her youngest daughter for elaborating

23:39

here, But this part of the story is crucial

23:42

and understanding why Avon entered our lives

23:44

in the first place. Here's Amy

23:46

talking about my great Grandma Maxine. When

23:49

she was really small, she had quite

23:51

a bit of money, and that's when she would wear the first clothes to school

23:53

and whatnot. This is a common refrain

23:56

when anyone in my family speaks of great

23:58

Grandma Maxine. You know, max she sen wore

24:00

for coats to elementary school. She

24:02

wore for coats to school. Do you know when

24:04

she was little she got to wear for coats to school?

24:07

If you don't know what to do with that information, neither

24:09

did I as a little kid. Should I

24:11

offer her Royal Highness more deference? Should

24:14

I pity her that everyone around her thinks

24:16

it's so crazy that she had a fur coat?

24:20

These days, I think, yeah, I owed her both

24:22

of those, So okay. Great

24:24

Grandma Maxine apparently her father

24:26

was a successful veterinarian who doted

24:28

on her when she was a very little girl. But

24:31

then he left a band

24:33

in the family, and a few years later

24:36

things got worse. She

24:38

met Grandpa

24:40

Leo. They got together when

24:43

she was fourteen, yeah,

24:45

and so he was like twenty one. Yeah,

24:49

And so he and she

24:51

had their first baby when she was fifteen,

24:54

had their second baby when she was sixteen,

24:58

and then had the third baby when

25:00

she was eighteen, and

25:03

we're done having kids when she was twenty one.

25:05

And so she literally

25:08

was a child with children, and

25:10

she was incredibly abused,

25:14

and they had no money, and

25:16

Grandpa Leo spent it all on

25:19

who knows what, I have a feeling you spent most

25:21

of it on beer and just

25:24

hanging out with his buddies. So

25:27

that's the kind of life that Maxine had.

25:38

Do you think that there was anything in grandma

25:40

becoming an Avon lady that was like her

25:43

chance to kind of

25:45

like be fancy again, that's

25:49

an interesting question. My mother

25:51

was a pianist and she was good,

25:54

and she taught our children and

25:57

Jane, and it

25:59

was the poor girl

26:01

never even had a piano. No, my

26:04

heart aches because my mother never

26:06

had a piano in her home, and

26:09

she was such a wonderful pianist, and

26:12

it's just something that was gone out of her

26:14

life. So yes, I think

26:17

that selling Avon

26:19

or eggs would have been an outlet. So

26:22

I'm grateful that she had that opportunity.

26:25

It may look like a small opportunity

26:27

to some people, but for her,

26:29

it was a way for her to

26:32

use her graciousness and be

26:34

able to communicate that My

26:38

great grandmother was poor, overwhelmed,

26:41

and life had decidedly not kept her in the

26:43

state of fur coated happiness she'd been born

26:45

into. But I think she got a kind

26:47

of independence through direct sales, through

26:50

Avon in particular. And it turns

26:52

out that mix of entrepreneurship

26:54

and escape that appealed to thousands

26:56

of women a whole wave of women

26:58

just like Maxine, who made the industry what

27:00

it is today. You can hear

27:02

how personal this all is for me. So

27:04

I wanted some perspective outside my family,

27:07

someone to answer a few basic questions about

27:09

a town like mine, questions

27:11

like why why us?

27:14

Why here? My name is Tracy Deutsch

27:16

and I'm a professor of history at the University

27:18

of Minnesota. Tracy studies gender

27:21

and capitalism, And she says, this whole direct

27:23

sales thing, especially women in direct

27:25

sales, was the result of a few things. One

27:29

in the late nineteenth century, door to door

27:31

salesmen had a bad rap, so

27:33

peddlers and direct sales people

27:36

had a really terrible reputation in

27:38

the late nineteenth century. They had,

27:41

in some cases a well earned reputation

27:43

as being swindlers and

27:45

untrustworthy. They were itinerant.

27:48

If you wanted to complain or return something,

27:50

good luck finding them. They were mostly

27:52

male, and some might have even been Jewish.

27:55

Anti Semitism, remember, was very hip

27:57

at the time, so town started making

28:00

laws restricting door to door sales. At

28:02

the same time, some companies that couldn't

28:04

break into the mainstream marketplace, in particular

28:07

black beauty products, found that women

28:09

selling directly to other women in their homes

28:12

was a way to get around both restrictive markets

28:15

and inviting strange men into your house.

28:18

I think that it was a

28:20

way to bypass the politics of

28:22

distribution that made it difficult to find

28:24

products for people who were marginalized.

28:27

So there weren't you know, large department stores

28:29

didn't carry skincare products

28:32

or cosmetics for black women, but it could

28:34

be sold through social networks. Annie

28:37

Turnbow Malone and her protege, Madam C.

28:39

J. Walker, both set up huge

28:41

networks of female distributors to sell black

28:43

hair care. At the turn of the last century, and both

28:46

of them became millionaires. Their

28:48

innovation, their networking helped

28:50

develop a sales strategy that would later

28:52

be emulated by countless companies,

28:55

including Avon. Avon actually

28:57

was founded in eighteen eighty six. They

29:00

yeah, I know, and they developed

29:02

this system of recruiting

29:04

women to sell their products very

29:07

early on, so by nineteen

29:09

oh two they had like ten thousand reps. Avon

29:12

was founded by a former door to door salesman,

29:15

David H. McConnell. He started

29:17

out selling books. And this might

29:19

sound a little creepy, it did to me, but at

29:22

some point David began

29:24

concocting perfumes in his

29:26

home and would offer tiny bottles

29:28

as a free gift to women who opened the door.

29:31

HM. Anyway, the

29:33

perfume took off, and eventually he dropped

29:35

the books and put those women to work. It's

29:38

really impossible to separate questions

29:41

of gender from questions of business strategy.

29:44

Right. They weren't selling products, they were selling women's

29:46

products, and they weren't just using

29:48

sales people, they were using women. So

29:51

every aspect of a lot of

29:53

cosmetics firms, but especially places

29:55

like Avon, was mindful

29:57

of the gender politics of the time. Period. One

30:00

reason that Avon turned to women

30:03

was because they were selling perfume, but

30:06

also because they were wanted to sell

30:08

perfume in women's homes. Having

30:10

women come into other women's homes

30:14

was more within gender conventions

30:17

than having strange men come into your house, which

30:19

could raise, you know, questions

30:21

about propriety. It

30:24

was also the case that, as

30:27

is often the case, they expected

30:29

that they would have to pay women less. Ah

30:33

right, yep. Being a

30:35

traveling salesman was a career path for men

30:38

in a way that women weren't expected to have careers

30:40

that took them outside their areas of residence.

30:43

Yeah, I suppose yes.

30:45

You could say, well, women can't travel,

30:48

right, they have to stay home, So then they're

30:51

necessarily valued less because

30:53

they don't have the mobility. Well,

30:56

it cuts both ways, right, On the one hand, women

30:58

have to stay at home and so their valued less. On the

31:00

other hand, women are valued less, so they have to stay

31:02

at home. They don't have right, they

31:05

don't have the option. The assumptions

31:08

that women are responsible for childcare and

31:11

managing households also

31:14

keeps them tied to one place.

31:17

So this was back in the twenties and thirties when

31:19

everyone had to be scrappy, you know, find

31:21

a way to make ends meet. Unmarried

31:24

women had often engaged in some

31:26

kinds of wage earning work, or they

31:28

had supported their families through

31:30

unpaid work like caring for other children or elderly

31:33

grandparents or parents or stuff like that. Married

31:36

women typically had moved in

31:38

and out of the workforce as household

31:40

economies demanded it when somebody

31:43

was laid off for whatever reason,

31:45

right, yeah, or they worked in what is

31:48

and this is really useful to understand what's

31:50

called the informal economy, which

31:52

are jobs that are not regulated, often buying

31:55

and selling products that are not regulated.

31:57

What do you mean like bake sales or yeah,

32:00

I do mean bake seals, things

32:02

like making food and selling

32:04

it out of your house to neighbors who come by.

32:08

It also is included

32:10

what we would think of as homework, so women

32:12

who finished fabrics or

32:15

textile or clothing in their homes

32:17

and then brought it back to a central site. So

32:20

it's a term for economic activities

32:22

that are actually often quite

32:24

important, generate a lot of

32:26

money for the economy,

32:29

but aren't formalized in the sense

32:31

that it's regular and regulated.

32:34

Right. So, and women

32:36

had often engaged in that kind of money

32:39

making. Married

32:47

women had begun to participate

32:50

in what you might think of as like the

32:52

formal economy in larger

32:54

numbers than ever before during World War Two, and

32:57

they often wanted to keep doing

33:00

that after the war because

33:02

the money was more stable for

33:04

all kinds of reasons, right that you can imagine.

33:07

But those jobs were less valuable

33:09

to them in some ways well because

33:11

the guys were back. Because the guys

33:13

were back, and because the

33:16

rigors of wartime no longer could

33:18

excuse their employment. So

33:21

one reason that they worked

33:23

for companies like Avon was

33:26

that they had been working right.

33:29

This was a job that they could get in

33:33

the nineteen fifties, and it was a job that often

33:36

was understood to be one

33:38

that could accommodate childcare and

33:41

husband care and housework

33:43

and things like that. And it also furthered

33:48

the ideology of domesticity because of the products

33:50

that were being sold were

33:52

people making money the

33:55

women. So interestingly,

33:59

that's a really hard question to answer. Both

34:02

of these firms kept and keep very

34:05

tight control of data

34:07

about how much money people made doing

34:10

this. All the data that we have

34:12

suggests that there's very little

34:14

money that's made what does

34:16

happen at these companies. Tepperware

34:19

jump started this process of

34:22

rewarding people socially

34:24

for their successes. So what they get

34:27

is a lot of affirmation

34:29

they feel appreciated, and

34:32

that I think should not be missed

34:35

in understanding the appeal of these firms.

34:37

The part of what they reward is

34:41

the affective, emotional labor

34:43

and the social connections that many

34:45

women maintain no matter what.

34:49

My great grandma was poor, but she didn't

34:51

need much in terms of actual cash. She

34:54

died in the same shock she'd raised her kids in

34:56

and lived off social security and the kindness

34:58

of her children. The thing that was

35:00

most lacking in her life was love and

35:03

self esteem and adoration and confidence.

35:06

And some of that stuff comes at a high price, no

35:08

matter how you go about getting it. Think

35:10

about the cost of a beauty pageant, or

35:12

getting an Ivy League education, or

35:14

your gym membership. In a way,

35:17

Maxine was investing in her quality of life,

35:19

even if the checks didn't cover her new siding

35:22

or a better wheelchair. That's a

35:24

common refrain among people who did

35:27

MLMs in the nineteen fifties and sixties and seventies

35:29

was that they felt special. They had access

35:32

to this world that rewarded

35:34

them.

35:40

Not every part of people's experiences in

35:42

these companies is bad. They

35:45

got social rewards. They often

35:47

felt like they got like

35:49

your grandmother, right, that they got to participate

35:52

in social interactions that

35:54

were really rewarding to them, right,

35:57

that made them feel good, that

35:59

got the out of their houses and justified

36:02

time at a party or spending it

36:04

with other people. And

36:07

we missed the significance of

36:09

what these organizations are doing if

36:12

we only look at them in financial

36:14

terms. They

36:17

did historically provide

36:19

things that conventional formal economy

36:22

does not provide, and it's a real problem.

36:25

The rigidity of working hours, the

36:28

lack of understanding about women's

36:30

responsibilities at home, the

36:33

need for social engagement and social

36:35

relations to be valued, that's

36:37

all something that these jobs

36:40

provided. So

36:42

anyways, I began to develop

36:44

my team and we did

36:46

things together. I had team meetings. Everything

36:49

that I did was for my girls. I

36:52

mean, they were my heart. My team was my

36:54

heart, and I gave my all. Now

36:57

it's about the culture of the community

37:00

sisterhood that I'm experiencing and then being

37:02

able to be something

37:05

besides a wife and a mother. Now I'm

37:07

contributing to the household. It's building

37:09

my self esteem, it's

37:13

making me feel whole

37:16

as a person. I really feel

37:19

lucky, or as they say here in the

37:21

South Left, that this

37:23

came along because I really feel

37:25

like everybody is rooting

37:28

for you. And I doubted

37:30

myself for a long time. I

37:34

doubted myself for a very long

37:36

time. But what I can

37:39

tell you, I

37:42

have met some of the most incredible

37:45

women, and I've had

37:47

so many people tell me you

37:50

live in a fantasy world, in

37:52

your little makeup world, And

37:54

I'm telling you, this has been my happy place,

37:58

and this has been the place. I'm

38:00

sorry, this

38:03

has been the place that has gotten

38:05

me through so many rough points

38:08

of my life in the past three years. I

38:13

owe my success

38:16

to you, my team,

38:21

the people that have believed in me, and the people

38:24

that have made me start believing in myself.

38:29

Next time on the Dream,

38:30

I'm happy to answer any questions that

38:32

you might have about what we're doing before we

38:34

get started, if you'd like, Yeah,

38:37

the biggest question I

38:40

had is why

38:42

why are you doing this? And what

38:45

would have prompted such an endeavor.

38:50

The Dream is a production of Little Everywhere

38:52

and Stitcher, written and reported by

38:54

Me Jane Marie, Dan Glucci,

38:57

Mackenzie cassab Lyra Smith, and help

38:59

from clar Rollinson. We

39:01

are edited by Peter Clowney. Our

39:03

fact checker is Michelle Harris. The

39:05

Dream is executive produced by Laura Mayor,

39:08

Chris Bannon, Dan Galucci and

39:10

me. We appreciate you subscribing,

39:13

rating, and reviewing the show wherever you

39:15

listen