The Rise and Fall of the Ladies' Deposit

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The ladies' deposit only took single unmarried women and widows as customers. Sarah reportedly dressed in her best clothes to sell that to them under the guise of, and you can be just like me. She played upon women's insecurity about what to do with their money. Most of the women who put money in the bank were mostly women from a working class or lower middle class background.

In the late 1870s, a woman named Sarah Howe started a bank just for single women called the Ladies’ Deposit Company. She asked new customers to tell their friends about the bank rather than advertising in newspapers, and she promised she could almost double their money.

Today, the story of the woman running a Ponzi scheme before Charles Ponzi was even born.

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Artwork by Julienne Alexander.

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