Mud Hens: The Women Who Gambled in Bucket Shops

During the 1870s, bucket shops appeared in the United States as an alternative to traditional stock exchanges. These shops allowed those with limited capital to bet on the rise and fall of the prices of commodity futures. The prevalence of bucket shops during the late 19th and early 20th centuries has sparked academic debate on average Americans' participation in the stock market. While some authors contend that these institutions were petty gambling rings operated by con men to swindle financially illiterate Americans, others insist they enabled working-class Americans to gain access to financial markets. However, the involvement of minority groups, women in particular, in these institutions draws relatively little attention in the current literature. Recent works attempt to assess bucket shops' democratizing role in the financial market at the time without considering the experiences of those with the least access to the market. This paper gives an overview of the historical evidence of women's involvement in bucket shops and assesses the extent to which these institutions truly gave women expanded access to the financial market. Further, this analysis examines public perceptions of women venturing outside of the domestic sphere during this transitional period in women's history.