Boardinghouse Guests: The Stenographers
By sifting through a transcript of Julia Wolfe’s Old Kentucky Home guest register and studying the hand-written names, we see families, couples, single men, and many single women listed as boarders. We are reminded, in the early 1900s, that it would be considered more appropriate for a woman travelling alone to stay in a boardinghouse as opposed to a hotel- particularly for young unmarried women. Women were not supposed to be seen unaccompanied outside the home, especially in places like restaurants and bars. The boardinghouse environment, however, could protect them from the vices of the city and provide communal, family style, dining not available in a restaurant. Because working women often earned half the salary afforded men in similar occupations, boardinghouses were more affordable. A dollar a day at Old Kentucky Home included two or three meals. An analysis of the 1920 Census revealed nearly 20 percent of women who were gainfully employed were living in boardinghouses or lodging in private homes.
Numerous women in Julia’s boardinghouse guest register shared something in common. Katie Moses, born in 1865 at New Orleans, stayed in the boardinghouse with her eighty-year-old mother in 1907. Unmarried, she’s listed as living in her brother’s household. Louie C. Christie, born in 1863 at Illinois, visited Asheville alone and noted her residence as her father’s home in Brooklyn in 1907. Lillie Linford Heckel, born in 1871, lived near St. Louis where in the 1910 Census she was listed as head of the household. She was supporting her younger sister Gertrude. Beulah Dickert, born in 1894 at Columbus, GA was living in Washington, DC with her sister Marion, and working for the US Senate. They were all single working stenographers. A stenographer was someone who wrote, transcribed, and typed shorthand, or just served as a typist. A stenographer/typist might work for a single boss, much like a private secretary, or might work in a large office with many other stenographer/typists in a more factory-like setting. Government agencies were big employers of stenographers, who were often young single women. Many men did not wish to hire married women. On average, by 1920, a female stenographer might earn $18 per week.
By 1920, in urban areas around the United States, just under half of clerical workers were women. Women had increasingly become visible participants in the labor force. Clerical jobs might include titles such as bookkeeper, cashier, accountant, clerk, stenographer, and typist. The ratio of women to men in these occupations varied, as women, for example, made up a much larger percentage of the stenographer and telephone operator workforce. A person generally needed a high school diploma to work in an office. More than half of high school graduates at the time were women. While educational opportunities were increasing for women, far more men were attending college. As a result, more men qualified for professional jobs and fewer men were available for clerical work. Because of this shift, women were excluded from jobs with higher pay and those with potential for promotion. The prevalent belief among men was that women belonged at home raising a family. Single women in the workforce were often fired once they married. Or, when they married, they simply left the workforce on their own accord to become a fulltime housewife. Julia Wolfe’s boarder Louie Christie married the year following her visit to Asheville in 1908, leaving her clerical career to take care of her new husband in Tennessee. Women like Katie Moses and Lillie Heckel never married and continued office work most of their lives.
For more information on women and men in the workplace, check out: https://www.officemuseum.com/office_gender.htm
