Title: Popular Jobs in the 1900s | Career Trend
Headings: Popular Jobs in the 1900s
Popular Jobs in the 1900s
Factory Work Anchored the New Industrial Economy
Secretaries Became an Indespensible Adjunct to Management
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Cashiers Were Everywhere

Content: Popular Jobs in the 1900s | Career Trend
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Popular Jobs in the 1900s
David Bonner
Updated December 28, 2018
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Before the Industrial Revolution and the rise of factory work in the late 1800s, most people were self-employed farmers or artisans. By the 1900s, however, most people were employees. The vast proliferation of consumer products in the 20th century led to the creation of hundreds of jobs that had not previously existed. Factory Work Anchored the New Industrial Economy
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Factory jobs in the 1900s were typified by assembly lines of the automobile, steel and other “rustbelt” industries. In the first decades of the century, factory employment offered minimal financial security, and the robotic nature of the work was famously parodied in the popular Charlie Chaplin movie “Modern Times.” However, beginning with the Great Depression, the rise industrial unionization dramatically increased the rewards of factory labor. By the 1950s, unionized factory jobs paid high wages with generous benefits and elevated millions of Americans into the middle class. Secretaries Became an Indespensible Adjunct to Management
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In the 1900s, women increasingly took over the clerical work that was formerly done by “office boys.” It was the only job women were allowed to do in a company, and they were allowed to do it primarily because they could be hired for lower wages. The modern secretary’s job eventually entailed doing virtually everything for managers except their actual job.