The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1905-10-26
WOE OF STENOGRAPHERS
A GOOD PROFESSION INVADED
BY iLL-TRAlNED GIRLS.


ness Colleges and Technical
Schools Have Low Educational
tandards-Ninety Thousand Type
writers in New York City-Most of
Them Getting Six Dollars a Week.
The Employers Share in the Poor
Conditions.
The young woman stenographer sat
In her own prosperous looking little
office near the top of the downtown
skyscraper and talked rather pes
simistically of her profession.
There never was such pity she
declared. In stenography and type
writing business women had the OPP
Rortunity of their lives. The type
writer was invented just at the time
Gwhen prejudice against having wom-
len in offices was ready to give up the
ghost; at time also when the econ
dmic independence of women had be-
gun to present itself as an ideal and
4 an ambition to thousands. The type
writer opened up most glorious op-
portunity to these aspiring women,
and how have they used it? Very
badly, l must say. Today the pro-
fession is a ruin"
1t was suggested that there still
seemed to be plenty of stenographers.
Plenty? Say superfiuity.' re-
piled the young woman. 1T is said
that there are ninety thousand of
tn Dr1y I how
are two thousand good ones. | said
the profession was a ruin; let us call
it dumping ground for incompetents.
The ignorant, ill-bred, unreliable, in
different stenographer has become as
the sands of the sea, and the capable,
intelligent, skilled operator has been
crowded out of the profession. You
don't believe it? Ask business men.
They will tell you that they sit up
nights to compose such attractive ad-
vertisements that frst-class women
will come in crowds to answer"
THE stenographer picked up morn
ing paper, found the Help wanted
Afemales,' and read: Competent
young woman wanted in law Office.
uoI NC IdplQ anu ACCURATE Sl0uUS-
n rapher Well educated Easy hours.
Pleasant position. Pleasant position.
Advancement. Salary $40 to begin"
Now wouldn't you think hundreds of
women in New York would prefer
that to teaching? Here's another:
Salary SIS; raise promised. Per
manent position Here's a firm ad-
In this one column eight men just
beg women to come downtown and
earn from SIS to $50 week Will
they get what they want? Possibly,
after interviewing dozens of business
colleges, technical schools and bene-
VIOLENT institution graduates, not one
of them can write a decently spelled
and punctuated letter. or present an
appearance that the Office would toll
crate.
'Stenography and typewriting are
fatally easy to learn, that is the trou-
bic. Almost any girl can pick up
enough stenography to call herself a
stenographer, and a half-witted per-
son can learn TO hit the right keys
OF typewriter. Just as soon as ali
| immigrant family gets to the point
where all the women wear hats, the
brightest girl of the lot resolves to
FNcut out the factory and the depart
ment store and to become a typewrit-
= er. The Jewish girls are most frequent
ly bitten with this ambition 1t is so
stylish to be a typewriter Your boss
calls you Miss So-and-So instead of
Sadie or Name, and the family looks
up to you. 1t is easy enough to get
into a class, and the only educational
qualification is a grammar school Ger
tlflcate. Sometimes not even that
much is necessary. | read story in
your paper once; it was a real path
etic story about a school where poor
girls were taught stenography and
other professions. 1t told of a Rus
sian girl WHO had come to this coun-
try eight years before and had gone
to work in box factory. She work
ed terribly hard for years to earn
enough to send for her parents and
brothers and sisters When they
came she still worked hard to support
them until they began to earn suf-
ficient income. Meanwhile size man
aged to get time to go to night school
and picked up sort of an education.
AS soon as the family was on it's
feet the girl-a pretty mature girl
by this time, / should think-left the
= box factory and applied for admission
10 this benevolent school, She was
much older than the fourteen and fif-
q teen-year-old pupils who filled the
q classes, but the school waived that.
n The only objection they made was
that her hands, from years of toll in
the box factory, had become SO twist
ed and stiff that they feared she
would never be able to use the type
writer. The girl persisted, and was
D finally admitted to the classes.
Her ambition and her spirit were
admirable, of course One respects