Title: American History USA
Headings: Working and Voting -- Women in the 1920s
Working and Voting -- Women in the 1920s
Dan Bryan, March 6 2012
Women voters and the Sheppard-Towner Act
Clerical occupations and the twenties woman
Creative occupations and the twenties woman
Work as a precursor to marriage

Content: And for those who were working-class, textile mills had been the one type of factory where jobs could be found. And on the farm, women helped out in myriad ways, as they traditionally had. But now with the rise of the corporate office, a number of other types of jobs opened up. Typists, filing clerks, stenographers, and even some secretarial roles all became possibilities for the ambitious young woman. In an era with absolutely nothing in the way of mass data storage, entire floors of office buildings were filled with the sound of typewriters and filing drawers. In most offices, desks were lined across a central room in rows, with no cubicle walls and often not even a window. Tasks consisted of things like listening to dictations and typing their contents, of creating and updating ledgers, or of creating bills and sending out requests for payment. These jobs supported a great number of young women who had fled the poverty of the countryside. In comparison to mills or farming it was an improvement. However, there was little opportunity for advancement and it was monotonous to the extreme.