I was the only boy in my 1954 high school typing class. I took some kidding from my friends, but I never regretted learning the keyboard and how to type.
Learned to type in 7th grade in the early 80's, it was a mandatory 10 week elective, not sure why they called it an elective, I didn't get to choose it, but it was most useful course I ever took. The other 10 weeks was sewing, that class didn't turn out to be so useful. Also 10 weeks of drafting and 10 weeks of cooking, both not so useful for me.
Plenty of boys in my high school summer typing class. We learned to type to the rhythm of records. I still remember the Hollyridge Strings 'Theme From Summer Place' when I hear that tune I want to start typing!
My mum was a typist and worked for a big oil company (shell to be exact). Was a prestigious company to work for, EXTREMELY generous and one of the better paid in the city. She started teaching me at a young age. By the time I was in highschool other people were stunned at how well I could type. Ended up being a computer nerd in my teenage years but now I'm in warehousing and able to operate a multitude of equipment.
How to be a secretary in 2013 Step 1: Get a useless Master's Degree Step 2: Cry over your student loan bills Step 3: Accept the first job with health insurance that let's you wear clothing.
Yeah my school career guidance officer was useless as well . If I had a question it would always be O I have too look into that and check back with u later !!! Never did 💯
I learned how to type on a manual in 9th grade and typed 40 wpm. The following year, got on an IBM electric typewriter, and my typing speed jumped up to 60 wpm. Eventually, I got up to 89 wpm. I've worked in pretty much every field, but learned the most in the legal field. I always read everything I typed, even with the SpellCheck function on WordPerfect and MS Word computer software.
My aunt ( 85 years old) learned typing, shorthand, stenography and accounting. Accounting was part of her duties as a medical secretary for a doctor's office
My Mom had a commercial high school diploma. The basics of bookkeeping were part of that. By the age of 17 she knew how to balance her own checkbook and budget the money from her part-time job. These are basic life skills all young people should learn at home and school.
This movie is actually very accurate. Things had changed very little by the 70s. Since I'd originally planned to become a journalist, I took a second year of typing in 1976. I was the only boy in class. Journalists in those days were expected to master shorthand, too. I would have been the only boy in that class, too, but my plans changed. Computers completely changed everything in the 80s.
So, how did it end up for you? Did your typing training come in handy after all? And, yes, there were certainly a lot of expectations for journalists back then that nobody else ever considered! Like how on earth did they ever make adequate notes during interviews, quoting people verbatim when they *couldnt* use shorthand? Of course, that being in the days before portable recording devices were available! You always saw reporters scribbling rapidly on little tablets of paper, but in longhand? Certainly very inefficient at the time! I took my one and only typing class my sophomore year in high school, in 1972-73, and we had LOTS of guys in our class. It was at least 1/3 of the class, if not more. Perhaps assuming they would be drafted at graduation, with Viet Nam still ravaging the population in many ways, they thought that having such a skill might keep them from becoming "cannon fodder" as it were? Who knows? Im just glad by the time we did graduate in 1975, it was finally ending. Or, maybe they thought it was something they would need for their future careers, or just be handy in college! I just wanted to be able to type my own research papers and reports to get me out of high school!
Which version of shorthand did you end up learning? I'm fascinated by the notion but there are different types so I'm interested to know what was actually in use before.
Shari D57 I took a second year of typing. It was that second year class in which I was the only boy. I still have a typewriter which I use very often. The single best way to get attention from a company is to send them a typewritten letter.
Not at all. The neat thing was that he seemed to be gently nudging June to aim higher in her career and educational goals. It was subtly done, but quite clear that they didn't want June to simply "settle"
I am a Secretary and have over 30 years of office experience. I remember learning how to type on the old Royal manual typewriters. I wish my job was this easy.
Wow, I am writing this in 2021, and it is exactly 80 years after this video was made. Imagine how impressed the secretaries and professors would be if you Time-travelled back there with a few laptops, iPhones and printers and set up an intranet in their office and showed and taught them how to use them. They would be in awe
@@UnknownName5050, I know you were joking, but if you were to time-travel to 400 years in the past and show them those devices, you would definitely be accused of witchcraft
I wish they were this thorough in high school nowadays, but I'm sure the sheer amount of students would make that very difficult. But wouldn't it be nice!
The reason why they could give this much attention is because schools were more plenty and they divided districts really well. Which in turn hired more teachers and students were fewer so they got more individual attention. Now they just Clump up kids all together and teach them like a military boot camp.
In the 90s I went trough the secretarial workshop course at high school. It was quite hard since I was the only male at the class group and was bullyed by other male students and some girls too. In other hand, I was not aware how really useful it will gonna be for me at the future. I aquired so many skills, redacting different kind of commercial writtings. I was very good in shorthand, even more than almost all the female classmates. Despite shorthand is not in use anymore I still remember how to do it, which has giving me certain advantage in some ocations by that nowadays rare skill. I do not regret of it at all!
Good for you. My late Mom took Pittman Steno and kept a pad near the phone and by her night table. She wrote down creative ideas, grocery lists and other things all in Pittman. Even at 70 years of age, she was still going strong. She was also a good typist and very good at organizing and prioritizing. Her commercial High School training and work as a legal secretary remained a part of her all her life. She had a way of structuring each day at home and work that made the lives of others a little easier.
My brother was the ONLY boy in his high school shorthand class and he got the top grades. For fifty years he has been a journalist and reporter and still uses it to take notes.
My dad was drafted to Vietnam and they asked "who knows how to type?" He and one other guy raised their hand. They chose my dad and gave him an office job. The other guy made it home too but had quite a different experience over there. Moral of the story, learn how to type. Or do administrative work. It is always needed! Physics, not so much.
I never took a typing class in school. Did nothing for me since it's embedded in since I was a kid. You grow up with computers and it's easy with little work.
Two mates and I did typing lessons at school in the early 1980s. My mates may have chatted up the ladies, I was rubbish at that but I did learn how to type, properly.
It would seem to me that probably saved your father's life I'm resulted in you being here I'm glad! What a nasty war we should have never been apart of.
I wish I'd had such a helpful guidance counselor in high school. I think I saw someone in the guidance department twice. Once, when my grades were slipping in 10th grade, and once when I was quitting in 11th grade. Things would have been so different if I'd had any support or guidance whatsoever. It seemed that they only felt further education was necessary (or even possible) for the rich, or for students with a straight-A average who could get a scholarship. It was never even considered for just an average student like me.
Tami - I'm sorry that happened to you. Such a waste of potential right there. But, you're not alone. My husband grew up in Midwestern farm country, where the schools were very small, and the faculty and other staff probably came out of the bottom third of their own classes. From everything I've been told about them, they were generally quite unmotivated to put forth much, if any, effort towards guiding their students towards any kind of future beyond the same old gender-locked occupations they and their parents were stuck in. My husband's graduating class was so small that the whole list of them fits on the back of a credit card sized duplicate of his diploma. About 40 people I think. He is about the only one who took off and left his home community for the big wide world, and joined the Air Force! Which is fine with me, because that was how we met, 44 years ago! One of the students in his class was actually "guided" to quit school, and stay home. Not that she was intellectually challenged in any way, or couldn't function in the classroom. But they all considered her too fat to come to school. Nothing more, nothing less. The school faculty and the administration all thought that she was not "appropriate" to attend school with the rest. Talk about horrible attitudes and closed minds! My mother-in-law was a seamstress, among other things, and did some sewing for her, at her mother's request, because finding clothing for plus size young women in small farming communities was quite impossible back in those days, and nobody wanted to help you with it either. My MIL could sew without patterns, and adjust patterns for different sizes, so I got to become acquainted with her and her mother, and was told later what happened with the school. I was appalled. I come from a very busy, very large urban area, and my graduating class was bigger than that whole town - over 660 students! We had to have graduation ceremonies at a large public Coliseum facility, scheduling graduations to alternate along with 5 or 6 other schools in the area! My high school has been the AAA State Football Champions numerous times in the last 50 years, and they still have the same Football coach NOW that we had THEN when I graduated in 1975! (My husband's school was too small to even have a football team, but they did have a basketball team.)
I had one and they decided you were either a employee in a well know boring position, didn't even have 20 different things, or in some type of building trade. I ended up in none of them: warehousing
I think it depended on counselor. We had two in our school. Both my brother and I came from a family that was just recently on food stamps and welfare as of 3 years prior. My brother was smart but bored in school and his grades were slipping. Education did not come easy for me but I was studious so I worked to get my grades up high. I remember both counselors knew us and gave good advice. One even said to me that at times school is not for every kid and that some kids prefer actual work, trade schools or just succeed more when not in school (ie my friend dropped out in 10th grade and started to fix computers and then is really successful now). At the time it was strange to hear because thought good grades = success in future career. But as I grew older, I realized that’s not the case. Our school was in a really well off neighborhood though at we got into because of my brother’s scores in math (again, smart kid, but was bored in school). I did summer school in a school next ti my house that was considered to be a much worse school. The teacher I got there was phenomenal. Point of this story, in all of our life situations, it’s what we make it but also having some sort of support. It can truly come from many places. I’m sorry you struggled and hope you were able to turn it around. Grades are not everything. My husband’s acquaintance who was a c student in college is now a ceo. He had other skills that people seem to respect him for. It’s not all about SAT scores and grades.
I'm getting a manual typewriter fixed. I find the popups so common on my laptop very distracting and I think I'll appreciate not having 20 different programs and tabs open all the time and update requests and emails distracting me.
I am not. the old electronic IBM keyboards were the shit. Also the key lay out is stupid. If you type fast you know.. it's all right index finger and left middle finger... there are better layouts than qwerty but y'all just won't budge in the consumer market because you type too slowly to notice
The career aptitude tests I took from 2012 to 2016 years said the same thing. A career in teaching suits me. For years I denied that my career interests were in education. In 2015 my high school did the same thing when I decided on my career. Now, the glamorous world of teaching awaits me. The test didn't lie. Teaching is the only career field I'm suited for and will thrive in.
Today counseling consists of ... go to college. Pick one. It's another big business, that's all. Doesn't matter if you're suited for it or if there will be a way of making a living after. Just go. Bring the numbers up for the school. I know these vids from the 50s look incredibly silly but it is kind of eye opening when you see how society used to work and how there was some kind of common goal... for the good of all.
@Dave Shaffer welcome. Some people can't afford it so pitching in isn't too bad. Hopefully you at least got good grades and are serving us in your field.
@@chieftp No one had talked to me about college or even a vocation and for one reason or another, I could never find the time or money for school. I have worked and gone to school, but gave up on pirsuing a degree. I'm now working and going to weld school and hoping that someone will hire me. I work in manufacturimg and also have worked as a secretary in the past.
I particularly liked the comment that the duplicating jobs were routinely given to women because they are detail oriented and fast....mic drop, men lol.
Also watch factories usually hired women, because of their small delicate fingers, they could assemble a watch better than a man could with large ape like fingers.
That seemed to be the point. The school counselor, in fact the entire program seemed to stress that June not sell herself short educationally and that she keep in mind that there would be room to advance if she continued in school.
I took typing in high school (I graduated in 2009). My typing skills have helped me both in the military and the civilian world. I’m an executive assistant to the Brig General in my office. It’s the same thing as a secretary. I still have to taking meeting notes, send out letters, etc. I was surprised that a man of his rank didn’t know how to do certain things on the computer or keyboard
I had a lousy guidance councillor..he actually lied to me..I had one more credit than I needed and he told me I couldn't drop a subject..I was going to go to teachers college but wouldn't get the marks I needed with that extra subject bogging me down..I was normally a quiet person but I stormed into the principals office and asked to see him..he calmed me down and went and got my records and came back and told me of course I could drop that subject..he was the best principal ever..level headed and not a scum bag like the councillor..I often wondered how many kids he lied to..I don't think he had even looked at my records.
I learned to type on a manual type writer when I was in Jr. High. Also took shorthand classes. I could do 60 wpm on one of those. My mother could do 90 wmp on the same machine, but when computer keyboards came along, I was able to do about 80 wpm, but my mother was clocked at 120 wpm! I was what you call a cusper, I initially learned on antiquated equipment, including a mimeograph machine, which was kind of fun, and then technology came along with dedicated word processors and then progressing to computers. There's not an office machine I can't use.
We didn't have Junior High Schools, or Middle Schools even, in the early 70s when I was old enough for 8th grade. We had elementary schools for the first 7 years, and then High Schools for 5 years, from 8th grade to 12th grade and graduation. It was kind of awkward being 13 and 14 and in the same school as the 18-year-old Seniors. It was almost like going to school with your parents! They were old enough to drive, work, date, marry (a very few Senior girls were wearing gold wedding bands, and acting very hoity-toity back then since they were legally "fully emancipated" and could write their own notes to get out of school whenever! But their husbands were older and already employed full time, mostly at the Shipyard which employed half the State, so we never saw them,) get drafted, vote (the Viet Nam War was responsible for that - the 18-year-olds platform on that was if they were old enough to get drafted, go to war, and die for their country, then they were old enough to vote for the people responsible for sendng them to it. The voting age was dropped from 21 to 18. Too bad it took so long to get there.) Anyway, we moved around from there to two other cities, both of which had Junior High Schools and High Schools that began with 10th grade, so I got bounced around a lot between school levels, class requirements, courses, etc. I finally got to take Typing I in 10th grade, and we had those big, gray, manual, office style, boat anchor size typewriters. If you wanted to type on the electric ones, you had to work your way UP to the Senior Business classes, and be in DECCA! I wasn't that motivated for it. I had no grand illusions of becoming a Distributive Education Queen - I just wanted to learn the basics so I could type my own research papers in school. We had no computers or word processors or anything like that. The only kind of "computers" I ever saw in school was the kind that operated on punch cards and left those little punch-out things all over the floor of the "Computer Lab," and outside the hallway outside the door, from people walking around on them, and tracking them around outside the room. I got through my first year of typing, and I learned enough to get my papers done for two years, and got out at graduation! My mother was a teacher at another school, and when their offices upgraded all their office equipment, she was able to pick up a gray Olivetti (?) Office style typewriter for a pittance and bring it home for me to use. I still have it! I don't use it, of course. But it's in the family room on a shelf. I really learned more just typing on a real computer keyboard after we got our first computer and a few upgrades after that, that I got so good that I did medical transcription work for a private ambulatory surgery center for almost a year, and made a nice little chunk of change doing it, as a sideline after I started working there as a CST (Certified Surgical Technologist) for about 6 years. All it took was getting hooked on playing a "fill in the song title" game on the Internet with a like-minded group of Beatles music fans! I got fast just from the survival angle, filling in the titles quicker than anyone else - or at least, trying to do it very hard! I was doing 65wpm, with very few errors and not watching my fingers at all, because I needed to watch the screen!
I am a cusper too. Learned on a manual, used mostly electric, and thought the "self-correcting" machine that erased mistakes by backspacing, was a God-send. It wasn't until the very late 80s you could count on a word processor being in the office instead of a typewriter.
I had a vintage, manual typewriter when I was a kid. My mom gave it to me. Businesses had long since abandoned manual typewriters for electric ones. She had an acquaintance who was going to throw it away. So, my mom asked if she could take it home. You would not believe how difficult it is to type on a manual typewriter. Frankly, I don’t know how those people did it. They typed so fast. When you got to the right margin, you had to manually push the carriage back into place. Also the ink ribbon was always getting out of alignment. It had to be replaced often. If I typed too fast the keys would bunch up. If you made a mistake you’d have to use liquid paper, an eraser or start over. And, if a key broke it pretty much rendered the typewriter useless. You just prayed that, if a key were going to break, it would be for a letter such as, X. You were in trouble if an A or an S broke. I wish I still had that old typewriter. They’re going for about 200.00 on eBay and Etsy.
Aaahh, the memories! I still have my old Smith Corona manual typewriter somewhere around the house. I never had a job that required typing, but I used the typewriter for typing homework and papers for college. I never tried to type too fast; it wasn't worth the resulting mistakes that I had to fix with correction tape. And all those messy carbon papers!
Those of us who used manual typewriters for years thought nothing of typing and operating the carriage. It was a rhythm you got into. Also there was correction tape that we used, quicker than the eraser and less messy than the liquid. There was always a typewriter repair business one could rely on for the few times a machine actually needd repair. There are also ways and levers you use to keep in alignment, depending on the model. Some also had half-line and half-space mode. We are still proud owners of an IBM Selectric 2 and a Hermes manual typewriter, both in good working condition.
This was the kind of relationships I had with my guidance counselors in high school and college in the 80s-90s. I prepared ahead of time and asked good questions that made good use of our appointment times. And I always wrote them “thank you” notes afterwards. I visited them years later and they still had my thank you notes in their desks. You get what you put in, in most relationships. I believe most kids emerge out of college unemployed because they don’t take this kind of initiative or foster relationships that can lead to jobs.
But you yourself must have learned that behavior somewhere. Unless it came from past life recall that is untraceable. Someone gave you the heads up about writing "thank you notes" to people who were, after all, doing their jobs at the school just like the other teachers. So many children don't get that today. Their parents might not be in the sorts of jobs where that is common and so they don't know how to do such a thing, or even that they should. Sadly, classes in practical work world behavior don't seem to be taught in most schools (I'm not counting the private ones). My son was in a high school program that gave the kids a chance to work off campus and one of the young chaps went to a job interview in cargo shorts. He just didn't know. It's a shame.
That sure wasnt the case in the NY City Public School system, we were just bodies filling seats, it was required that you had to take either Spanish or French class, pass it and physical ed class, since I hated both and they were required to graduate into the next grade, I cut school in the afternoons, and then stopped going completely, it was MONTHS before the school system even noticed and sent someone to our apartment. So I had cut most of the second half of the 9th grade and stopped going in the tenth, by that point I was of age that they said father could sign me out so I asked him to do that. We lived in Greenwich Village, but the system had me going to this JHS and HS over in a SLUM, it was horrible, I had my lunch money stolen often, there were drugs, gangs, one kid set off tear gas under his desk, another brought in a stolen parking meter and hid it in the coat closet, I just wanted OUT of there. The daily classes near the end were something like math, science, music appreciation, English, typing, foreign language, gym. They did have a metal and a printing class but I think those were in the grade before, I liked both, we made metal things, and they had small offset printing machines we could cut blocks of linoleum in reverse to print designs and things, but you see much of those trades being taught like they were in the 70s
@@jaminova_1969 Every mammal has a sexual division of labour-including humans, normally. But now the powerful elites are pushing “gender equality” on us (why??!!) and society is going down the toilet.
What you made in the early 90s is really good. During my ordeals in various clerical jobs I never got paid as well-not that I'm highly skilled as a clerical worker. Still, clerical work is better to be underemployed at than working as a salesclerk or at some assembly line. At least for me. Right now, i'd be grateful to have a job that pays $10 an hour, and I have a master's degree.
@@janeadelaidelennox7193 Being a secretary was almost the equivalent of being an executive back then. It was a demanding career with long hours but the pay was great with many raises and promotions. It was far more involved than the requirements of a modern secretary. You have to realize that back then there were no computers or reliable, automated ways to take calls, schedule meetings or conferences, sort paperwork, etc, etc. All things we take for granted and view as mundane now, required people with intellect, skill, great memory, superb multitasking abilities and people skills in those days It wasn't a job for the lazy, unintelligent or slow. Those women had to be the modern equivalent of a high-end computer. In many cases, it was a career choice with potential for financial security, growth and prestige.
@@mr.l8527 You actually had to answer the phone or it would continue ringing, there was no automated menu and you couldn't leave a message, someone at the Office actually had to pick up the phone.A small office probably couldn't afford a separate phone person, so the secretary had to answer the phone in addition to her other duties. Also, no copy machine, you used carbon paper or if you were lucky had a messy mimeograph machine. I am old to enough to remember this stuff, fun times! Don't even get me started how we did inventory in those days! No scanners, just a pad and paper and you counted, usually for several days!
@@mr.l8527 there are still no reliable automated ways to do all that and doing it with pen and paper was often quicker and easier... so is having a good memory in general :P
I love particularly this video and I've chosen to select some of the scenes for my music video "Sempre No" (Always No). I loved the rhythm of the fingers, the movement in the office and the piercing look of the leading actress.
@@bridgebum826 She was practicing typing from memory or oral speech in real time without looking at the keyboard, a skill most modern typists of that era learned to master.
There are certain types of "artistic license" that went along with making movies like this back in those days, and even contribute to stories told today. We are left to assume that the door would normally be closed in such a situation, but the reality of it was like "axiomist" mentioned - the camera needed to follow her in the office, so the door wasn't shown to us as being closed right behind her. It's like a lot of other things that don't actually contribute to the storyline in TV shows and movies which are never included because they take up too much unnecessary time. Things like in shows that cover several days or weeks of time, you don't see every individual involved in the show doing all the things that are normally done on a daily basis in "the real world" - things like dressing, putting away laundry after its been done, bathing or showering, brushing their teeth, cleaning up the kitchen after meals, cleaning the house, etc. Those things we must just assume have happened, unless they are included because they help develop the storyline or advance a particular plot point. For instance, showing every dish as it's washed, rinsed, dried and put away usually doesn't have anything to do with most stories, and if it does, they only use up film and time showing the most important elements of it. Our imaginations are called upon to fill in the rest.
Dont worry about learning to type, in a few months you'll have to learn to field strip a M-1 Garrand. And tell June to take a few shop courses to run a rivet gun at a defense plant or class on growing food in the victory garden to get you through rationing.
I had a clunky, sticky manual typewriter in my 1970s high school typing class so didn't get the skill there. I taught myself to type years later on a word processer.
Why cant people be this way today??? I didn't live in those times, however ladies were well dressed, mannerly and their diction seems different. They even sat properly!
Well, it does help me understand all the mothers and fathers who nagged their baby boomer kids about manners, speech, and general behavior. They had stricter boundaries.
@@crybebebunny I think ADHD is ***diagnosed*** more commonly in men vs women (boys vs girls) which could be for a bunch of reasons, but I don't think there's evidence of gender being a factor in actually ***having*** ADHD "However, in a 7-year matched case-control study of 219 adults with ADHD and 215 adults without ADHD, interaction analyses found that gender did not moderate the association between ADHD and phenotypic presentation of the disorder. In fact, the number of ADHD symptoms, and the distribution of symptom clusters of inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity, was found to be highly similar between genders.3 Researchers in this study concluded that the similar pattern of psychiatric disorders and impaired psychosocial/school functioning between males and females with ADHD indicate that aetiologic factors for ADHD may not differentiate between gender, and that both males and females with ADHD are severely under-identified and under-treated."
I'm not going to try to judge the different gender roles from that era, but Miss Lee's hair at 9:22 makes me hungry for cinnamon rolls. FABULOUS. Also, I love Mr. Adams' voice when he shows June Woods her report card and tells her about her personality. LOL. I wish high school counselors wore such awesome suits in modern times. Now, it's like they're all fat slobs who wear T-shirts and Dockers to work. FAIL.
If you move up into middle management at a corporation, you better be good at being your own secretary, because chances are there won’t be one working for you.
My uncle shortlisted two candidates and took them out for a meal. He chose the one with good table manners because this would reflect his overall upbringing and manners. Manners maketh man.
Could you PLEASE not insert ads DURING the video? And if you absolutely MUST placer then in the video, could you PLEASE at the very LEAST insert them where there's a pause in conversation? Thank you.
After a lot of training and effort, my typing speed went up to a blistering 15 words a minute. My downfall has been the little injuries I acquired doing hard chores at my retail jobs. My wrists and thumb joints are too painful. I ended up on disability. Because I couldn't do something as simple as typing at normal speed.
@@Eszra Wow I work a part-time night shift as a front desk employee in a hotel and I make around 13hundred a month. But I guess the price of good and services did change rapidly from the 40's to now, maybe people could live comfortably with 11hundred back then
@@Eszra Wages and prices were much, much lower back then. Once the USA joined WWII, there were more jobs than available workers, so wages went up a lot. But there wasn't much to buy, because most things were rationed.
@@hulkamal5434 - Yep, its called inflation. There are some interesting calculators available online that will show the inflation-affected equivalents of how the relative value of a dollar has changed over the last several decades. It's interesting to see how much it took back in the 40's and 50's to live and function compared to how much it takes today to equal the same amount. And it helps make sense of how people could actually get along on much less cash decades ago. Things were MUCH cheaper back then, but then nobody made as much money back then either, so as a percentage of income, most of the time it can come out about the same. You could buy a new car back in the 50's for say, $1300, but people weren't making nearly as much money back then either. For instance, my father-in-law was working for a commercial printing plant when he and my mother-in-law got married in 1955, in the Midwest, and he was making about $75 a week. That was fairly decent money for that place and time, and for only two people. But by the time they had 5 kids, in the next 9 years, he was making a good bit more money, but had a LOT more ways in which to split it up! Plus the cost of living had increased a good bit too, by the mid-60's. There are also charts that will show average costs of specific commodities for certain times, which will help give an idea of average living expenses for American families. Things like the cost of an average house, a new car, a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, a pound of steak, a pound of coffee, even a postage stamp, or the price of an ounce of gold, which affected more than just the cost of wedding rings! Although they were MUCH cheaper back then, when gold stayed at $35 an ounce for a few decades! Nobody made fortunes selling gold for scrap. You could buy nice thick, heavy, well made gold bands for $15 to $25 in the 50's, depending on the style. No diamonds, but then most people didn't wear a lot of diamonds. Diamonds were seemingly a lot cheaper back then, of course, but then they were also a higher percentage of income. "The 4 C's" as they are today didn't exist then, so the quality was more widely varied than it can be now, and sizes were MUCH smaller, relatively speaking. An engagement ring, or even a whole set, with more than 25 to 35 points - a 1/4 carat to a 1/3 carat - in it was considered quite generous! Nobody had expectations of center stones over a carat, unless they were already quite wealthy, and expected to marry someone else of the same status as themselves. It just wasn't done. Two carat stones were almost unheard of. Even up to the 1970's, most women didn't have expectations of much more than a half a carat solitaire in an engagement ring. Of course, most girls *dreamed of* that almost magical full carat diamond solitaire, but they were only dreams. When reality set in, of course, it was quite a different story! It can be really interesting to try and wrap your head around how much - or actually, how little - people used to make and live on. New house payments under $50 a month used to be quite common!
@@OofusTwillip - And people used a lot of their "excess cash" to buy War Bonds then too. They fully matured in 10 years, but even before full maturity they were worth more than they cost. Millions of new families of ex-GIs found themselves living in those brand new houses built in those brand new suburbs of the late 40's and into the 50's that they helped finance by cashing in those hard earned War Bonds. A $25 bond could be purchased for $18.75 at issue, which was 75% of face value, and they were available in different denominations of up to $10,000, which were bought by companies/corporations mostly, or those legendary "Dollar a Year Men." So, a few dozen $25 war bonds added up to quite a nice little return on investment! As Series "E" Savings Bonds originally, they were initially marketed as "Defense Bonds" until Pearl Harbor, and the name was changed from Defense Bonds to War Bonds. Many people bought more than one bond per month, so had quite a drawer-full, by the time the war was over with in 1945. War Bond Rallies helped sell millions of dollars worth of them all over the country, and serious advertising helped sell many more. In fact, advertising for them by the War Finance Committee and the War Advertising Council produced the greatest volume of advertising for any one product in US history. "Free" movie nights, "free" baseball and football games, all requiring a War Bond purchase for admission helped sell millions more. Five years, beginning in 1940, would be about 60 months, depending on when they started buying them, and when they stopped, so theoretically, you could have as much as 120 Bonds at two bonds a month. And if you held them all to maturity, you'd have $3,000 return on your initial investment of $2250. Not a spectacular percentage - they paid at 2.9% interest. But, their purchase also pulled cash out of circulation, which kept up its value, and helped curb inflation. Homes were a high priority purchase after the war, and especially when the GI (or war-job employed husband, for those in essential industries or not fit for military service) and the war-job employed fianceé/wife both invested their excess funds in said bonds, and personal savings after the War, when the postwar consumer industries ramped up production once again. Many a new suburban home down payment was financed by those bonds. Or bought some or even all of the new furnishings needed for that new four, five or even six room home. (Some of this information came from personal knowledge of the history of the pre-war to post-war years, and some was verified or obtained from the following - www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1682.html - which has more details for anyone interested.)
These poor girls only had about 20 to 30 more years before they were replaced by younger computer savvy secretaries. And they ended up discarded and with horrible arthritis 😔
You didn't get carpal tunnel syndrome from typing on a manual typewriter, because you had to use your arm muscles to work those stiff keys. I learned to type on a big, manual Olympia typewriter. I still pound the keys when I'm typing, and I use a clicky manual keyboard.
@@OofusTwillip - I took a basic typing class during my sophomore year in high school - 1972-73! I, too, learned to type on a heavy manual office style typewriter. I wasn't very good at it, and my teacher was at her wit's end over me! 😣 Computers were still the province of NASA scientists and other "high tech" types. And weren't operated by direct keyboard input, as I recall. Mostly by punchcards, which were produced via keyboards, but not the same as we type today. Nobody had a thought, or even much of an inkling about computers for personal use, or their keyboards, or even "word processors," which were completely self-contained, as there was still 20 years to go before the Internet came along. In high school, if you wanted to type on electric typewriters, you took two years of basic and intermediate typewriting, and a few other beginning business courses for sure - but I wasn't that much into it. I just wanted to learn how to type my papers and stuff for high school classes! I know it wasn't an Olympia, and I still have it! It's put away of course, and I can't get to it, but it's still in the house. Oh! I just remembered - it's a Royal!
Well more like between 2 to 5 years, these women used to get married young or should I say married at a proper time, not in their 40s whilst they were trying to “find” themselves and then end up finding themselves unable to have children because they waited too long…
I graduated high school in 1956 and always typed No males types Yet, twenty years later in 1976. When I took a computer class. It was all males typing and very few females. Today, everyone types
I wonder if they reuse actresses and actors for these short films. The secretary at 2:08 looks and sounds just like another girl named Caroline in another one of these short films.
@5:22 onward the woman answering the phone "good morning..." Um...it's around 2 o'clock in the afternoon (they took the 1:40 bus, remember?). Pffft. Is that receptionist tooted up from her three martini lunch?
Perhaps because in specific situations, the "blanks" that would normally be filled in with a specific response were either too small for that particular need, wouldn't have made sense for that particular circumstance, or existed where they weren't required, and needed to be omitted.
I was the only boy in my 1954 high school typing class. I took some kidding from my friends, but I never regretted learning the keyboard and how to type.
I learned to type at a very young age, and my mom even tried to teach me shorthand. Skills that are important, like reading and writing cursive.
Learned to type in 7th grade in the early 80's, it was a mandatory 10 week elective, not sure why they called it an elective, I didn't get to choose it, but it was most useful course I ever took. The other 10 weeks was sewing, that class didn't turn out to be so useful. Also 10 weeks of drafting and 10 weeks of cooking, both not so useful for me.
Wow. 1954. I was born 38 years later😭
Plenty of boys in my high school summer typing class. We learned to type to the rhythm of records. I still remember the Hollyridge Strings 'Theme From Summer Place' when I hear that tune I want to start typing!
My mum was a typist and worked for a big oil company (shell to be exact). Was a prestigious company to work for, EXTREMELY generous and one of the better paid in the city. She started teaching me at a young age. By the time I was in highschool other people were stunned at how well I could type. Ended up being a computer nerd in my teenage years but now I'm in warehousing and able to operate a multitude of equipment.
*Hi, I’m here because watching 40-50’s videos is all I do after school*
Good hobby. Btw the Mark VII is my favourite of your suits of armour Mr Stark; functional, yet elegant.
Tony Stark i am doing the same
Saaaaammmee
boy me too
How to be a secretary in 2013
Step 1: Get a useless Master's Degree
Step 2: Cry over your student loan bills
Step 3: Accept the first job with health insurance that let's you wear clothing.
Number 3 should be : When you can’t find a job with your Masters, go back to school to get your PhD.
TheTfroggy912 🤣🤣🤣🤣
A useless degree like anything in STEM lol
Oh shit..... This is my life.
It’s now 2021, things have changed a lot.
Mr Adams is more useful than all my school career guidance officers 😂
Yeah my school career guidance officer was useless as well . If I had a question it would always be O I have too look into that and check back with u later !!! Never did 💯
I learned how to type on a manual in 9th grade and typed 40 wpm. The following year, got on an IBM electric typewriter, and my typing speed jumped up to 60 wpm. Eventually, I got up to 89 wpm. I've worked in pretty much every field, but learned the most in the legal field. I always read everything I typed, even with the SpellCheck function on WordPerfect and MS Word computer software.
My aunt ( 85 years old) learned typing, shorthand, stenography and accounting. Accounting was part of her duties as a medical secretary for a doctor's office
My Mom had a commercial high school diploma. The basics of bookkeeping were part of that. By the age of 17 she knew how to balance her own checkbook and budget the money from her part-time job. These are basic life skills all young people should learn at home and school.
This movie is actually very accurate. Things had changed very little by the 70s.
Since I'd originally planned to become a journalist, I took a second year of typing in 1976. I was the only boy in class.
Journalists in those days were expected to master shorthand, too. I would have been the only boy in that class, too, but my plans changed.
Computers completely changed everything in the 80s.
So, how did it end up for you? Did your typing training come in handy after all?
And, yes, there were certainly a lot of expectations for journalists back then that nobody else ever considered! Like how on earth did they ever make adequate notes during interviews, quoting people verbatim when they *couldnt* use shorthand? Of course, that being in the days before portable recording devices were available! You always saw reporters scribbling rapidly on little tablets of paper, but in longhand? Certainly very inefficient at the time!
I took my one and only typing class my sophomore year in high school, in 1972-73, and we had LOTS of guys in our class. It was at least 1/3 of the class, if not more.
Perhaps assuming they would be drafted at graduation, with Viet Nam still ravaging the population in many ways, they thought that having such a skill might keep them from becoming "cannon fodder" as it were? Who knows? Im just glad by the time we did graduate in 1975, it was finally ending. Or, maybe they thought it was something they would need for their future careers, or just be handy in college! I just wanted to be able to type my own research papers and reports to get me out of high school!
Which version of shorthand did you end up learning? I'm fascinated by the notion but there are different types so I'm interested to know what was actually in use before.
Shari D57 I took a second year of typing. It was that second year class in which I was the only boy.
I still have a typewriter which I use very often. The single best way to get attention from a company is to send them a typewritten letter.
Pink Magic Ali I actually didn’t take that shorthand class, because my plans had changed. It would have been Diamond Jubilee Gregg.
I appreciate that he's not condescending
Not at all. The neat thing was that he seemed to be gently nudging June to aim higher in her career and educational goals. It was subtly done, but quite clear that they didn't want June to simply "settle"
@@zaker721 True. Despite what people may think, these videos have an optimistic view of life and reaching your dreams.
I am a Secretary and have over 30 years of office experience. I remember learning how to type on the old Royal manual typewriters. I wish my job was this easy.
Wow, I am writing this in 2021, and it is exactly 80 years after this video was made. Imagine how impressed the secretaries and professors would be if you Time-travelled back there with a few laptops, iPhones and printers and set up an intranet in their office and showed and taught them how to use them. They would be in awe
You’d be in jail for witchcraft xD
@@UnknownName5050, I know you were joking, but if you were to time-travel to 400 years in the past and show them those devices, you would definitely be accused of witchcraft
Thanks to computers, today I’m my own secretary. My dad had secretarial support; I have to do it myself.
I wish they were this thorough in high school nowadays, but I'm sure the sheer amount of students would make that very difficult. But wouldn't it be nice!
sheer amount of students sounds like the ideal group for working in an Amazon warehouse
The reason why they could give this much attention is because schools were more plenty and they divided districts really well. Which in turn hired more teachers and students were fewer so they got more individual attention. Now they just Clump up kids all together and teach them like a military boot camp.
In the 90s I went trough the secretarial workshop course at high school. It was quite hard since I was the only male at the class group and was bullyed by other male students and some girls too. In other hand, I was not aware how really useful it will gonna be for me at the future. I aquired so many skills, redacting different kind of commercial writtings. I was very good in shorthand, even more than almost all the female classmates. Despite shorthand is not in use anymore I still remember how to do it, which has giving me certain advantage in some ocations by that nowadays rare skill.
I do not regret of it at all!
Good for you. My late Mom took Pittman Steno and kept a pad near the phone and by her night table. She wrote down creative ideas, grocery lists and other things all in Pittman. Even at 70 years of age, she was still going strong. She was also a good typist and very good at organizing and prioritizing. Her commercial High School training and work as a legal secretary remained a part of her all her life. She had a way of structuring each day at home and work that made the lives of others a little easier.
My brother was the ONLY boy in his high school shorthand class and he got the top grades. For fifty years he has been a journalist and reporter and still uses it to take notes.
so. they left in the afternoon, but the switchboard operator kept saying Good Morning.. time zones were crazy back then..
the closing shot says it all. just look at how thrilled she is to be working at her job as a secretary!
Good for her and with that kind of determination she can easily work her way up to office manager! 😊
"So who's your favourite director?"
The good people at Coronet.
My dad was drafted to Vietnam and they asked "who knows how to type?" He and one other guy raised their hand. They chose my dad and gave him an office job. The other guy made it home too but had quite a different experience over there. Moral of the story, learn how to type. Or do administrative work. It is always needed! Physics, not so much.
My parents were horrifird when I said it, but Typing was the most useful class I ever took in school. I've used it every day of my life since then.
I never took a typing class in school. Did nothing for me since it's embedded in since I was a kid. You grow up with computers and it's easy with little work.
Two mates and I did typing lessons at school in the early 1980s. My mates may have chatted up the ladies, I was rubbish at that but I did learn how to type, properly.
I don’t even remember “learning to type”. I just type
It would seem to me that probably saved your father's life I'm resulted in you being here I'm glad! What a nasty war we should have never been apart of.
It may just be me, but in the last shot the girl seems to have the perfect "please kill me" expression.
I can't unsee it now
I hear "sociable and cooperative" and cringe every time
I wish I'd had such a helpful guidance counselor in high school. I think I saw someone in the guidance department twice. Once, when my grades were slipping in 10th grade, and once when I was quitting in 11th grade. Things would have been so different if I'd had any support or guidance whatsoever. It seemed that they only felt further education was necessary (or even possible) for the rich, or for students with a straight-A average who could get a scholarship. It was never even considered for just an average student like me.
Tami - I'm sorry that happened to you. Such a waste of potential right there. But, you're not alone.
My husband grew up in Midwestern farm country, where the schools were very small, and the faculty and other staff probably came out of the bottom third of their own classes. From everything I've been told about them, they were generally quite unmotivated to put forth much, if any, effort towards guiding their students towards any kind of future beyond the same old gender-locked occupations they and their parents were stuck in. My husband's graduating class was so small that the whole list of them fits on the back of a credit card sized duplicate of his diploma. About 40 people I think. He is about the only one who took off and left his home community for the big wide world, and joined the Air Force! Which is fine with me, because that was how we met, 44 years ago!
One of the students in his class was actually "guided" to quit school, and stay home. Not that she was intellectually challenged in any way, or couldn't function in the classroom. But they all considered her too fat to come to school. Nothing more, nothing less. The school faculty and the administration all thought that she was not "appropriate" to attend school with the rest. Talk about horrible attitudes and closed minds!
My mother-in-law was a seamstress, among other things, and did some sewing for her, at her mother's request, because finding clothing for plus size young women in small farming communities was quite impossible back in those days, and nobody wanted to help you with it either. My MIL could sew without patterns, and adjust patterns for different sizes, so I got to become acquainted with her and her mother, and was told later what happened with the school. I was appalled. I come from a very busy, very large urban area, and my graduating class was bigger than that whole town - over 660 students! We had to have graduation ceremonies at a large public Coliseum facility, scheduling graduations to alternate along with 5 or 6 other schools in the area!
My high school has been the AAA State Football Champions numerous times in the last 50 years, and they still have the same Football coach NOW that we had THEN when I graduated in 1975! (My husband's school was too small to even have a football team, but they did have a basketball team.)
I had one and they decided you were either a employee in a well know boring position, didn't even have 20 different things, or in some type of building trade. I ended up in none of them: warehousing
I think it depended on counselor. We had two in our school. Both my brother and I came from a family that was just recently on food stamps and welfare as of 3 years prior. My brother was smart but bored in school and his grades were slipping. Education did not come easy for me but I was studious so I worked to get my grades up high. I remember both counselors knew us and gave good advice. One even said to me that at times school is not for every kid and that some kids prefer actual work, trade schools or just succeed more when not in school (ie my friend dropped out in 10th grade and started to fix computers and then is really successful now). At the time it was strange to hear because thought good grades = success in future career. But as I grew older, I realized that’s not the case. Our school was in a really well off neighborhood though at we got into because of my brother’s scores in math (again, smart kid, but was bored in school). I did summer school in a school next ti my house that was considered to be a much worse school. The teacher I got there was phenomenal. Point of this story, in all of our life situations, it’s what we make it but also having some sort of support. It can truly come from many places. I’m sorry you struggled and hope you were able to turn it around. Grades are not everything. My husband’s acquaintance who was a c student in college is now a ceo. He had other skills that people seem to respect him for. It’s not all about SAT scores and grades.
Man am I glad we have modern keyboards
And copy & paste
I own the first 1957 Smith Corona electric portable . LOVE it. I tried to collect and use cool old manuals but my fingers can't take it.
I'm getting a manual typewriter fixed. I find the popups so common on my laptop very distracting and I think I'll appreciate not having 20 different programs and tabs open all the time and update requests and emails distracting me.
I am not.
the old electronic IBM keyboards were the shit.
Also the key lay out is stupid. If you type fast you know.. it's all right index finger and left middle finger... there are better layouts than qwerty but y'all just won't budge in the consumer market because you type too slowly to notice
The career aptitude tests I took from 2012 to 2016 years said the same thing. A career in teaching suits me. For years I denied that my career interests were in education. In 2015 my high school did the same thing when I decided on my career. Now, the glamorous world of teaching awaits me. The test didn't lie. Teaching is the only career field I'm suited for and will thrive in.
Today counseling consists of ... go to college. Pick one. It's another big business, that's all. Doesn't matter if you're suited for it or if there will be a way of making a living after. Just go. Bring the numbers up for the school. I know these vids from the 50s look incredibly silly but it is kind of eye opening when you see how society used to work and how there was some kind of common goal... for the good of all.
but if you don't go to college, then you're an uneducated loser who will complain about working at a job where the owners pay you next to nothing.
@@chieftp You get jobs like that, even WITH a college degree.
@Dave Shaffer welcome. Some people can't afford it so pitching in isn't too bad. Hopefully you at least got good grades and are serving us in your field.
College is a racket. So many worthless degrees (and vanity majors) out there.
@@chieftp No one had talked to me about college or even a vocation and for one reason or another, I could never find the time or money for school. I have worked and gone to school, but gave up on pirsuing a degree. I'm now working and going to weld school and hoping that someone will hire me. I work in manufacturimg and also have worked as a secretary in the past.
Wow part of me really wants to live in that world. Everyone is so pleasant and helpful!
This is just a P.S.A of the time not what life was really like back then. They was probably horrible people like today
Buck Neked People were more civil and friendly back then...............as long as you were White.
Behind the scenes there is pain
@@AJax8588 homeland? So no white people born in America will go where?? They're FROM America.
I particularly liked the comment that the duplicating jobs were routinely given to women because they are detail oriented and fast....mic drop, men lol.
They were given to ' girls' not ' women'.
Also watch factories usually hired women, because of their small delicate fingers, they could assemble a watch better than a man could with large ape like fingers.
Still happens. Anytime small pieces have to be assembled, they prefer women to do the work. They're faster, more accurate and make less mistakes.
@@JENDALL714 they're better at soldering
Keep laughing. You still can't change a light bulb.
Maybe she could be Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense...
Maybe you should get back in the kitchen and stop chasing D nonstop.
...or just a secretary sheesh. It’s ok.
William Wirt Maybe you should get back to the internet porn and take care of your little pee~pee.
That seemed to be the point. The school counselor, in fact the entire program seemed to stress that June not sell herself short educationally and that she keep in mind that there would be room to advance if she continued in school.
Only in her dreams Missy.
I took typing in high school (I graduated in 2009). My typing skills have helped me both in the military and the civilian world. I’m an executive assistant to the Brig General in my office. It’s the same thing as a secretary. I still have to taking meeting notes, send out letters, etc. I was surprised that a man of his rank didn’t know how to do certain things on the computer or keyboard
How old is your boss? He might be a tech dinosaur.
Every time she says “But Mr. Adams” I keep hearing “But Mr. Owl how many licks to the center of a tootsie pop”
sp00kii I’m cracking up!
Three.
Bitch, so did I!!!!
I had a lousy guidance councillor..he actually lied to me..I had one more credit than I needed and he told me I couldn't drop a subject..I was going to go to teachers college but wouldn't get the marks I needed with that extra subject bogging me down..I was normally a quiet person but I stormed into the principals office and asked to see him..he calmed me down and went and got my records and came back and told me of course I could drop that subject..he was the best principal ever..level headed and not a scum bag like the councillor..I often wondered how many kids he lied to..I don't think he had even looked at my records.
I learned to type on a manual type writer when I was in Jr. High. Also took shorthand classes. I could do 60 wpm on one of those. My mother could do 90 wmp on the same machine, but when computer keyboards came along, I was able to do about 80 wpm, but my mother was clocked at 120 wpm! I was what you call a cusper, I initially learned on antiquated equipment, including a mimeograph machine, which was kind of fun, and then technology came along with dedicated word processors and then progressing to computers. There's not an office machine I can't use.
We didn't have Junior High Schools, or Middle Schools even, in the early 70s when I was old enough for 8th grade. We had elementary schools for the first 7 years, and then High Schools for 5 years, from 8th grade to 12th grade and graduation.
It was kind of awkward being 13 and 14 and in the same school as the 18-year-old Seniors. It was almost like going to school with your parents! They were old enough to drive, work, date, marry (a very few Senior girls were wearing gold wedding bands, and acting very hoity-toity back then since they were legally "fully emancipated" and could write their own notes to get out of school whenever! But their husbands were older and already employed full time, mostly at the Shipyard which employed half the State, so we never saw them,) get drafted, vote (the Viet Nam War was responsible for that - the 18-year-olds platform on that was if they were old enough to get drafted, go to war, and die for their country, then they were old enough to vote for the people responsible for sendng them to it. The voting age was dropped from 21 to 18. Too bad it took so long to get there.)
Anyway, we moved around from there to two other cities, both of which had Junior High Schools and High Schools that began with 10th grade, so I got bounced around a lot between school levels, class requirements, courses, etc. I finally got to take Typing I in 10th grade, and we had those big, gray, manual, office style, boat anchor size typewriters. If you wanted to type on the electric ones, you had to work your way UP to the Senior Business classes, and be in DECCA! I wasn't that motivated for it. I had no grand illusions of becoming a Distributive Education Queen - I just wanted to learn the basics so I could type my own research papers in school. We had no computers or word processors or anything like that. The only kind of "computers" I ever saw in school was the kind that operated on punch cards and left those little punch-out things all over the floor of the "Computer Lab," and outside the hallway outside the door, from people walking around on them, and tracking them around outside the room.
I got through my first year of typing, and I learned enough to get my papers done for two years, and got out at graduation! My mother was a teacher at another school, and when their offices upgraded all their office equipment, she was able to pick up a gray Olivetti (?) Office style typewriter for a pittance and bring it home for me to use. I still have it! I don't use it, of course. But it's in the family room on a shelf.
I really learned more just typing on a real computer keyboard after we got our first computer and a few upgrades after that, that I got so good that I did medical transcription work for a private ambulatory surgery center for almost a year, and made a nice little chunk of change doing it, as a sideline after I started working there as a CST (Certified Surgical Technologist) for about 6 years.
All it took was getting hooked on playing a "fill in the song title" game on the Internet with a like-minded group of Beatles music fans! I got fast just from the survival angle, filling in the titles quicker than anyone else - or at least, trying to do it very hard! I was doing 65wpm, with very few errors and not watching my fingers at all, because I needed to watch the screen!
I am a cusper too. Learned on a manual, used mostly electric, and thought the "self-correcting" machine that erased mistakes by backspacing, was a God-send. It wasn't until the very late 80s you could count on a word processor being in the office instead of a typewriter.
I had a vintage, manual typewriter when I was a kid. My mom gave it to me. Businesses had long since abandoned manual typewriters for electric ones. She had an acquaintance who was going to throw it away. So, my mom asked if she could take it home. You would not believe how difficult it is to type on a manual typewriter. Frankly, I don’t know how those people did it. They typed so fast. When you got to the right margin, you had to manually push the carriage back into place. Also the ink ribbon was always getting out of alignment. It had to be replaced often. If I typed too fast the keys would bunch up. If you made a mistake you’d have to use liquid paper, an eraser or start over. And, if a key broke it pretty much rendered the typewriter useless. You just prayed that, if a key were going to break, it would be for a letter such as, X. You were in trouble if an A or an S broke. I wish I still had that old typewriter. They’re going for about 200.00 on eBay and Etsy.
Aaahh, the memories! I still have my old Smith Corona manual typewriter somewhere around the house. I never had a job that required typing, but I used the typewriter for typing homework and papers for college. I never tried to type too fast; it wasn't worth the resulting mistakes that I had to fix with correction tape. And all those messy carbon papers!
@reverse thrust Yes, they do! You can get them from amazon or from office supply stores.
Those of us who used manual typewriters for years thought nothing of typing and operating the carriage. It was a rhythm you got into.
Also there was correction tape that we used, quicker than the eraser and less messy than the liquid.
There was always a typewriter repair business one could rely on for the few times a machine actually needd repair.
There are also ways and levers you use to keep in alignment, depending on the model. Some also had half-line and half-space mode.
We are still proud owners of an IBM Selectric 2 and a Hermes manual typewriter, both in good working condition.
This was the kind of relationships I had with my guidance counselors in high school and college in the 80s-90s. I prepared ahead of time and asked good questions that made good use of our appointment times. And I always wrote them “thank you” notes afterwards. I visited them years later and they still had my thank you notes in their desks. You get what you put in, in most relationships. I believe most kids emerge out of college unemployed because they don’t take this kind of initiative or foster relationships that can lead to jobs.
karlsie oh you are so right!
Wow, did you write the script for this video as well?
But you yourself must have learned that behavior somewhere. Unless it came from past life recall that is untraceable. Someone gave you the heads up about writing "thank you notes" to people who were, after all, doing their jobs at the school just like the other teachers. So many children don't get that today. Their parents might not be in the sorts of jobs where that is common and so they don't know how to do such a thing, or even that they should. Sadly, classes in practical work world behavior don't seem to be taught in most schools (I'm not counting the private ones). My son was in a high school program that gave the kids a chance to work off campus and one of the young chaps went to a job interview in cargo shorts. He just didn't know. It's a shame.
Foster relationships? I go online to a job website. Only pussies brown nose their way into jobs thru "relationships".
That sure wasnt the case in the NY City Public School system, we were just bodies filling seats, it was required that you had to take either Spanish or French class, pass it and physical ed class, since I hated both and they were required to graduate into the next grade, I cut school in the afternoons, and then stopped going completely, it was MONTHS before the school system even noticed and sent someone to our apartment.
So I had cut most of the second half of the 9th grade and stopped going in the tenth, by that point I was of age that they said father could sign me out so I asked him to do that.
We lived in Greenwich Village, but the system had me going to this JHS and HS over in a SLUM, it was horrible, I had my lunch money stolen often, there were drugs, gangs, one kid set off tear gas under his desk, another brought in a stolen parking meter and hid it in the coat closet, I just wanted OUT of there.
The daily classes near the end were something like math, science, music appreciation, English, typing, foreign language, gym. They did have a metal and a printing class but I think those were in the grade before, I liked both, we made metal things, and they had small offset printing machines we could cut blocks of linoleum in reverse to print designs and things, but you see much of those trades being taught like they were in the 70s
Plot twist: she’s top of her class in chemistry and physics
So was Madame Curie.
To think these high school kids were just a few months away from Pearl Harbor..........and WWII.
In 1941, it was already two years into WWII...and like 2 millions Poles murdered.
@@platynowa I think what Alan meant was when the United States entered the war...not when WW2 actually started.
Zuzanna Karolina Filutowska poles?
@@MarkZ_1985 I think he meant polish people.
And the future destruction of America? Fighting useless Zionist wars.
Actually that was a great job for a woman at the time. Secretary or teacher. Governess seamstress housekeeper cook. These were jobs opened to women.
Both of my grandma's worked in a factory during the war and one was a newspaper writer! My Mom was a secretary in the 60's and 70's.
Boss bitch
@@jaminova_1969 Every mammal has a sexual division of labour-including humans, normally. But now the powerful elites are pushing “gender equality” on us (why??!!) and society is going down the toilet.
What you made in the early 90s is really good. During my ordeals in various clerical jobs I never got paid as well-not that I'm highly skilled as a clerical worker. Still, clerical work is better to be underemployed at than working as a salesclerk or at some assembly line. At least for me.
Right now, i'd be grateful to have a job that pays $10 an hour, and I have a master's degree.
I'm working on an assembly line. It's ok for now. Beats unemployment!
@@amandabr9562 masters degree in gender studies ? Yea not worth it..... get into STEM possibly IT, et voila ,you have 120k an year easily.
I went to secretarial school in the earls 80's. I didn’t know that 40 years later the profession would almost obsolete.
They had such a funny little inflection in the 40s
So nice for June to have a robot male manager. Great for her to have the enormous encouragement to succeed as a ..... stenographer.
LOL, she looks so happy there at the end with her new job.
Most over-achieving high school student ever.
Emily Roberts right? And she wants to be a stenographer. Not a particle physicist or a doctor.
A receptionist.
My class president
@@janeadelaidelennox7193 Being a secretary was almost the equivalent of being an executive back then.
It was a demanding career with long hours but the pay was great with many raises and promotions.
It was far more involved than the requirements of a modern secretary.
You have to realize that back then there were no computers or reliable, automated ways to take calls, schedule meetings or conferences, sort paperwork, etc, etc.
All things we take for granted and view as mundane now, required people with intellect, skill, great memory, superb multitasking abilities and people skills in those days
It wasn't a job for the lazy, unintelligent or slow.
Those women had to be the modern equivalent of a high-end computer.
In many cases, it was a career choice with potential for financial security, growth and prestige.
@@mr.l8527 You actually had to answer the phone or it would continue ringing, there was no automated menu and you couldn't leave a message, someone at the Office actually had to pick up the phone.A small office probably couldn't afford a separate phone person, so the secretary had to answer the phone in addition to her other duties. Also, no copy machine, you used carbon paper or if you were lucky had a messy mimeograph machine. I am old to enough to remember this stuff, fun times! Don't even get me started how we did inventory in those days! No scanners, just a pad and paper and you counted, usually for several days!
@@mr.l8527 there are still no reliable automated ways to do all that and doing it with pen and paper was often quicker and easier... so is having a good memory in general :P
I love particularly this video and I've chosen to select some of the scenes for my music video "Sempre No" (Always No). I loved the rhythm of the fingers, the movement in the office and the piercing look of the leading actress.
It’s sad she went blind at the end. That came out of nowhere.
Plot twist: she was blind the whole time.
@@bridgebum826 She was practicing typing from memory or oral speech in real time without looking at the keyboard, a skill most modern typists of that era learned to master.
Wtfuuhhhkkk
@@hamtramckchronicles but she was ticking a list off at the beginning
Walks into talk to Mr. Adams, about something private, doesn't close the door.
If she closed the door, the camera wouldnt be able to go in after her.
There are certain types of "artistic license" that went along with making movies like this back in those days, and even contribute to stories told today. We are left to assume that the door would normally be closed in such a situation, but the reality of it was like "axiomist" mentioned - the camera needed to follow her in the office, so the door wasn't shown to us as being closed right behind her.
It's like a lot of other things that don't actually contribute to the storyline in TV shows and movies which are never included because they take up too much unnecessary time. Things like in shows that cover several days or weeks of time, you don't see every individual involved in the show doing all the things that are normally done on a daily basis in "the real world" - things like dressing, putting away laundry after its been done, bathing or showering, brushing their teeth, cleaning up the kitchen after meals, cleaning the house, etc. Those things we must just assume have happened, unless they are included because they help develop the storyline or advance a particular plot point. For instance, showing every dish as it's washed, rinsed, dried and put away usually doesn't have anything to do with most stories, and if it does, they only use up film and time showing the most important elements of it. Our imaginations are called upon to fill in the rest.
Maybe Mr. Adams ain't safe behind closed doors.
She knew that Mr. adams was a pussy grabber just like that pervert Trump so that's why she left the door open!
70 words per minute,… on those old typewriters,…. damn!
I was, unfortunately, far too lazy, crazy and disorganized to be a secretary :( so I became a teacher
I am actually studying to be a teacher :)
@@gw437 what i was thinking. I am only going into teaching because I have the opposite of these traits
I’m homeschooling my daughter.
I’m definitely not organized, very eclectic.
Dont worry about learning to type, in a few months you'll have to learn to field strip a M-1 Garrand. And tell June to take a few shop courses to run a rivet gun at a defense plant or class on growing food in the victory garden to get you through rationing.
"Really advanced clerical work."
I had a clunky, sticky manual typewriter in my 1970s high school typing class so didn't get the skill there. I taught myself to type years later on a word processer.
The subtitle translates “stenographer” as “astronaut with fur”🤣😂🤣
So June and Miss Harrison go to Messon's in the afternoon, but the receptionist answers the phone saying "Good morning, Messon's Incorporated."
Why cant people be this way today??? I didn't live in those times, however ladies were well dressed, mannerly and their diction seems different. They even sat properly!
Yes, they were more mature.
Wa3ypx also, no tattoos.
Well, it does help me understand all the mothers and fathers who nagged their baby boomer kids about manners, speech, and general behavior. They had stricter boundaries.
Miss Lee wore an early prototype of the "Lisa Simpson" hairdo.
I appreciate the use of public transport she’s using at 4:57 which makes you think that it was affordable, timely, and safe then.
Her expression in the last shot looks exactly like Susan Hayward's as she was led to the gas chamber in 'I Want To Live".
stalbansgirl1956 Lmao!
Love that movie.
I know, right!
This is light years ahead of my careers advice in 1985!!
Wish someone had paid this amount of attention to my future when I was in school.
Same here. There was no career counseling and you only got called to the counselor's office if you were in trouble. I graduated in 1967.
My counselor in high school:
"What color lanyard do you want? You can pick two colors out of the box"
Barbara Bush and Queen Elizabeth were around the same age as these young ladies in 1941 !
I love watching these videos📠📞
Meanwhile at The Office: “I don’t think it’s many little girls’ dream to be a receptionist.”
Ladies pay attention. Grooming, posture, manners, education, impeccable speech and purpose.
Maybe when men stop dressing like little boys in shorts and baseball caps, women will start dressing in something other than yoga pants.
"Girls are preferred on jobs that require routine speed and accuracy. " No duh, lol.
Because Boys are to distracted to type accurately; they tend to have ADHD.
@@crybebebunny
I think ADHD is ***diagnosed*** more commonly in men vs women (boys vs girls) which could be for a bunch of reasons, but I don't think there's evidence of gender being a factor in actually ***having*** ADHD
"However, in a 7-year matched case-control study of 219 adults with ADHD and 215 adults without ADHD, interaction analyses found that gender did not moderate the association between ADHD and phenotypic presentation of the disorder. In fact, the number of ADHD symptoms, and the distribution of symptom clusters of inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity, was found to be highly similar between genders.3
Researchers in this study concluded that the similar pattern of psychiatric disorders and impaired psychosocial/school functioning between males and females with ADHD indicate that aetiologic factors for ADHD may not differentiate between gender, and that both males and females with ADHD are severely under-identified and under-treated."
adhd-institute.com/burden-of-adhd/epidemiology/gender/ - my source
Everyone needs HISTORY. He who does not learn from HISTORY is DOOMED to REPEAT it. So many ignorant people don't think HISTORY is important.
I'm not going to try to judge the different gender roles from that era, but Miss Lee's hair at 9:22 makes me hungry for cinnamon rolls. FABULOUS. Also, I love Mr. Adams' voice when he shows June Woods her report card and tells her about her personality. LOL. I wish high school counselors wore such awesome suits in modern times. Now, it's like they're all fat slobs who wear T-shirts and Dockers to work. FAIL.
@calihartley2010 no.
as a Gen X'er, my class group was probably the lsst to learn to type on typewriters at school. it's all computers now.
If you move up into middle management at a corporation, you better be good at being your own secretary, because chances are there won’t be one working for you.
I like Mr. Adams. He may look awfully straight-laced but he keeps a huge bong on his desk. Good for him.
My god, Miss Harrison aged 20 years between leaving her office and arriving at Messon's inc.
I've been a secretary before. It's not so bad. You get to take your shoes off a your desk and look pretty and get raises easily.
I love writing - fantasy 🙃 - so if I had not had a computer in my day I would have been on a typewriter.
My uncle shortlisted two candidates and took them out for a meal. He chose the one with good table manners because this would reflect his overall upbringing and manners. Manners maketh man.
They took the 1:40 bus into the city - when they get there the telephone operator is saying “Good morning “ when answering the phone ????
Does this councillor meet with every student 2 times Each semester? That would be amazing.
Could you PLEASE not insert ads DURING the video? And if you absolutely MUST placer then in the video, could you PLEASE at the very LEAST insert them where there's a pause in conversation? Thank you.
And BTW, I totally GET that it's free; however, there's still no need for ads to be placed DURING the video.
After a lot of training and effort, my typing speed went up to a blistering 15 words a minute. My downfall has been the little injuries I acquired doing hard chores at my retail jobs. My wrists and thumb joints are too painful. I ended up on disability. Because I couldn't do something as simple as typing at normal speed.
that last shot did not look good!
Was she struck blind after leaving the counselor's?
She’s like kill me
It didn't, but I think it was to indicate that she was practicing touch typing and not looking at the keys. Bad note to leave it on though.
"[June] had won the battle over [herself]. [She] loved Big Brother."
A very formal historical time in 1941, maybe in Minneapolis.
This seems like it was a good job for a young woman. Was the pay good or did the girls stay at home until they marry?
+adelgado75 I looked it up and it says that Secretaries made about $70's a month. That equals $1,132.56 a month in 2015.
@@Eszra Wow I work a part-time night shift as a front desk employee in a hotel and I make around 13hundred a month.
But I guess the price of good and services did change rapidly from the 40's to now, maybe people could live comfortably with 11hundred back then
@@Eszra Wages and prices were much, much lower back then. Once the USA joined WWII, there were more jobs than available workers, so wages went up a lot. But there wasn't much to buy, because most things were rationed.
@@hulkamal5434 - Yep, its called inflation. There are some interesting calculators available online that will show the inflation-affected equivalents of how the relative value of a dollar has changed over the last several decades. It's interesting to see how much it took back in the 40's and 50's to live and function compared to how much it takes today to equal the same amount. And it helps make sense of how people could actually get along on much less cash decades ago. Things were MUCH cheaper back then, but then nobody made as much money back then either, so as a percentage of income, most of the time it can come out about the same. You could buy a new car back in the 50's for say, $1300, but people weren't making nearly as much money back then either. For instance, my father-in-law was working for a commercial printing plant when he and my mother-in-law got married in 1955, in the Midwest, and he was making about $75 a week. That was fairly decent money for that place and time, and for only two people. But by the time they had 5 kids, in the next 9 years, he was making a good bit more money, but had a LOT more ways in which to split it up! Plus the cost of living had increased a good bit too, by the mid-60's.
There are also charts that will show average costs of specific commodities for certain times, which will help give an idea of average living expenses for American families. Things like the cost of an average house, a new car, a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, a pound of steak, a pound of coffee, even a postage stamp, or the price of an ounce of gold, which affected more than just the cost of wedding rings!
Although they were MUCH cheaper back then, when gold stayed at $35 an ounce for a few decades! Nobody made fortunes selling gold for scrap. You could buy nice thick, heavy, well made gold bands for $15 to $25 in the 50's, depending on the style. No diamonds, but then most people didn't wear a lot of diamonds. Diamonds were seemingly a lot cheaper back then, of course, but then they were also a higher percentage of income. "The 4 C's" as they are today didn't exist then, so the quality was more widely varied than it can be now, and sizes were MUCH smaller, relatively speaking. An engagement ring, or even a whole set, with more than 25 to 35 points - a 1/4 carat to a 1/3 carat - in it was considered quite generous! Nobody had expectations of center stones over a carat, unless they were already quite wealthy, and expected to marry someone else of the same status as themselves. It just wasn't done. Two carat stones were almost unheard of. Even up to the 1970's, most women didn't have expectations of much more than a half a carat solitaire in an engagement ring. Of course, most girls *dreamed of* that almost magical full carat diamond solitaire, but they were only dreams. When reality set in, of course, it was quite a different story!
It can be really interesting to try and wrap your head around how much - or actually, how little - people used to make and live on. New house payments under $50 a month used to be quite common!
@@OofusTwillip - And people used a lot of their "excess cash" to buy War Bonds then too. They fully matured in 10 years, but even before full maturity they were worth more than they cost. Millions of new families of ex-GIs found themselves living in those brand new houses built in those brand new suburbs of the late 40's and into the 50's that they helped finance by cashing in those hard earned War Bonds. A $25 bond could be purchased for $18.75 at issue, which was 75% of face value, and they were available in different denominations of up to $10,000, which were bought by companies/corporations mostly, or those legendary "Dollar a Year Men." So, a few dozen $25 war bonds added up to quite a nice little return on investment! As Series "E" Savings Bonds originally, they were initially marketed as "Defense Bonds" until Pearl Harbor, and the name was changed from Defense Bonds to War Bonds. Many people bought more than one bond per month, so had quite a drawer-full, by the time the war was over with in 1945. War Bond Rallies helped sell millions of dollars worth of them all over the country, and serious advertising helped sell many more. In fact, advertising for them by the War Finance Committee and the War Advertising Council produced the greatest volume of advertising for any one product in US history. "Free" movie nights, "free" baseball and football games, all requiring a War Bond purchase for admission helped sell millions more. Five years, beginning in 1940, would be about 60 months, depending on when they started buying them, and when they stopped, so theoretically, you could have as much as 120 Bonds at two bonds a month. And if you held them all to maturity, you'd have $3,000 return on your initial investment of $2250. Not a spectacular percentage - they paid at 2.9% interest. But, their purchase also pulled cash out of circulation, which kept up its value, and helped curb inflation.
Homes were a high priority purchase after the war, and especially when the GI (or war-job employed husband, for those in essential industries or not fit for military service) and the war-job employed fianceé/wife both invested their excess funds in said bonds, and personal savings after the War, when the postwar consumer industries ramped up production once again. Many a new suburban home down payment was financed by those bonds. Or bought some or even all of the new furnishings needed for that new four, five or even six room home.
(Some of this information came from personal knowledge of the history of the pre-war to post-war years, and some was verified or obtained from the following - www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1682.html -
which has more details for anyone interested.)
I don't really care about this girl's career aspirations, but she really should consider going to a charm school, because she out-dulls Bella Swan.
These poor girls only had about 20 to 30 more years before they were replaced by younger computer savvy secretaries. And they ended up discarded and with horrible arthritis 😔
You didn't get carpal tunnel syndrome from typing on a manual typewriter, because you had to use your arm muscles to work those stiff keys.
I learned to type on a big, manual Olympia typewriter. I still pound the keys when I'm typing, and I use a clicky manual keyboard.
@@OofusTwillip - I took a basic typing class during my sophomore year in high school - 1972-73! I, too, learned to type on a heavy manual office style typewriter. I wasn't very good at it, and my teacher was at her wit's end over me! 😣 Computers were still the province of NASA scientists and other "high tech" types. And weren't operated by direct keyboard input, as I recall. Mostly by punchcards, which were produced via keyboards, but not the same as we type today.
Nobody had a thought, or even much of an inkling about computers for personal use, or their keyboards, or even "word processors," which were completely self-contained, as there was still 20 years to go before the Internet came along.
In high school, if you wanted to type on electric typewriters, you took two years of basic and intermediate typewriting, and a few other beginning business courses for sure - but I wasn't that much into it. I just wanted to learn how to type my papers and stuff for high school classes!
I know it wasn't an Olympia, and I still have it! It's put away of course, and I can't get to it, but it's still in the house. Oh! I just remembered - it's a Royal!
Well more like between 2 to 5 years, these women used to get married young or should I say married at a proper time, not in their 40s whilst they were trying to “find” themselves and then end up finding themselves unable to have children because they waited too long…
Miss Lee has some ADD deficits at 9:23.
Miss Lee might need to use some more of that fine judgement when choosing hairstyles.
And after work, the office manager jumps on the train for the ride back to Whoville....that hair!
A pig in a blanket stuck on the top of her head.
The Whos that Horton heard or the one that the Grinch stole Christmas from?
"But Mr. Adams, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a secretary job?"
I graduated high school in 1956 and always typed
No males types
Yet, twenty years later in 1976. When I took a computer class. It was all males typing and very few females. Today, everyone types
Learned on a manual, and when I finally got onto a Selectric, I was a very happy person.
What’s with the Office Manager’s hair?
any one ever live this time period
I wonder if they reuse actresses and actors for these short films. The secretary at 2:08 looks and sounds just like another girl named Caroline in another one of these short films.
Best thing I ever learned was keyboard skills!
Nice oldie occupational education film, June is a cutie too
You said it! Wonder if things will ever get better, not optimistic.
Does the counselor, Mr. Adams, remind anyone else of Mr. Rogers?
Mr Rogers or Mr Wilson from Dennis The Menace ( the first Mr Wilson)
Hmm, "How do you do" instead of "How are you".
How do you do is for making someone's acquaintance. Not really used anymore, unfortunately.
Certainly a step up from regular secretarial work.
I wonder what the budget was for this film
"Girls are preferred for routine jobs." Hunh?
Routine jobs that require speed and accuracy. Maybe men are slow and inaccurate.
Women of the 40s were so damn good looking
What kind of data does this school have about their students???
@5:22 onward the woman answering the phone "good morning..." Um...it's around 2 o'clock in the afternoon (they took the 1:40 bus, remember?). Pffft. Is that receptionist tooted up from her three martini lunch?
Move to California and become a movie actor who plays the part of a secretary!!! .. this is the perfect fit for you
Why would a form letter not be able to be copied?
Perhaps because in specific situations, the "blanks" that would normally be filled in with a specific response were either too small for that particular need, wouldn't have made sense for that particular circumstance, or existed where they weren't required, and needed to be omitted.