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The Changing Genderization of Bookkeeping in the United States, 1870–1930

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Charles W. Wootton  and
Barbara E. Kemmerer
Charles W. Wootton
Affiliation:
CHARLES W. WOOTTON is professor of accountancy at Eastern Illinois University.
Barbara E. Kemmerer
Affiliation:
BARBARA E. KEMMERER is associate professor of management at Eastern Illinois University.
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Abstract

During the time period from 1870–1930, economic, social, demographic and educational forces interacted with the separation of accounting from bookkeeping. The result of this interaction was the changing genderization of the bookkeeping workforce. This paper suggests that this change process cannot be fully understood until both environmental forces and the emergence of accounting from bookkeeping are considered. Evidence of this interaction comes from Census data as well as historical documents.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 70 , Issue 4 , Winter 1996 , pp. 541 - 586
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1996

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82 During this period, several articles and books were published that dealt with the often bleak conditions that women and children faced in the factories and mercantile establishments. “Perhaps the best known of the journalistic exposes on working women” was by Helen Stuart Campbell who wrote a series of articles on the working conditions of women in department stores and the needle trades for The New York Tribune. Weiner, From Working Girl to Working Mother, 37. These articles were collected and published as Campbell, Helen, Prisoners of Poverty: Women Wage-Workers, Their Trades and Their Lives (Boston, Mass., 1887).Google Scholar In a later book, Campbell, Helen, Women Wage-Earners: Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future (Boston, Mass., 1893), 191Google Scholar, describes the life of the unskilled woman factory worker, “In unskilled labor there is little difference among the workers. All alike are half starved, half clothed, overworked to a frightful degree; the report specifying numbers whose days work runs from fourteen to sixteen hours, and with neither time to learn some better method of earning a living, nor hope enough to spur them on in any new path.” Working conditions in a factory, as experienced by a middle-class reporter, is presented in Richardson, Dorothy, The Long Day: The Story of a New York Working Girl as Told hby Herself (New York, 1906).Google Scholar Florence Kelley, General Secretary of the National Consumers' League, presents a picture of working conditions of women in eighty-two textile mills, fifty-nine rag shops, and five dealers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in a 1919 article: Kelley, Florence, “Wage-Earning Women in War Time: The Textile Industry,” The Journal of Industrial Hygiene 1 (Oct. 1919): 261–283.Google Scholar

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86 Koziara, Karen Shallcross, “Women and Work: The Evolving Policy,” in Working Women: Past, Present, Future, ed. Koziara, Karen Shallcross, Moskow, Michael H., and Tanner, Lucretia Dewey (Washington, D.C., 1987), 375Google Scholar, notes that in the late 1800s, women who found work in factories often had to work “long hours at low pay in substandard conditions.” Smuts, Robert W., Women and Work in America (New York, 1959), 48–49Google Scholar, states: “… a (middle-class) daughter could not be permitted to suffer the drudgery, dirt, noise, and even danger of unskilled factory work. Nor could she be allowed to associate with the uncouth immigrants who worked in factories.” The likelihood of middle-class daughters with high school degrees working in factories can be see in a 1911 study of women employed in seven major industries in Kansas City, Missouri. Of 2,430 women employed in these industries, only 3.5% had a high school degree. Kansas City (Mo.) Board of Public Welfare Bureau of Statistics, Labor, Report on the Wage-Earnings Women of Kansas City and the Annual Report of the Factory Inspection Department for the Year 1912–1913 (Kansas City, Mo., 1913)Google Scholar, Table 16, 26.

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101 During the late 1800s and early 1900s, the use of the term “accountant” sometimes was restricted to individuals who reviewed or audited financial records of other individuals, private companies, or public corporations. In other cases, the term accountant might refer to individuals who were responsible for overseeing the work of “bookkeepers” or who were responsible for the preparation of the financial statements. The uniqueness of accountants in the 1800s is illustrated the 1880 Williams' Cincinnati Directory Embracing A Full Alphabetical Record of the Names of the Inhabitants of Cincinnati, A Business Directory, Municipal Record, Etc. June, 1880 (Cincinnati, Oh., 1880), 1150–1156. In contrast to over 700 listings for attorneys or law firms, the Cincinnati Directory lists only 4 accountants or accounting firms, the same number as for astrologists [sic].

102 This twelve percent share of the workforce was the high point of the employment of women for several years and was created by a unique situation (World War I). During the War, due to the shortage of men, several accounting firms temporarily hired women as accountants. When the war ended, some of the firms retained women as workers; however, they hired men for all new accounting positions. By 1930, women constituted less than nine percent of the accountants/auditors. United States Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population Volume V (Washington, D.C., 1933), Table 3, 49.Google Scholar An interesting account of the influence of World War I upon the employment of women in the Federal Government can be found in Nienburg, Bertha M., Women in the Government Service Bulletin of the Women's Bureau, No. 8 (Washington, D.C., 1920).Google Scholar

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113 A vivid description of the working conditions, hours worked, and wages of women working in the slaughtering and meat-packing houses of Chicago is presented in Abbott, Edith and Breckinridge, Sophonisba, “Women in Industry: The Chicago Stockyard,” The Journal of Political Economy 19 (Oct. 1905): 609–654.Google Scholar In 1905, slightly over 11% of the workforce in meat-preparation houses were women, usually recent immigrants. Abbott and Breckinridge reported that in a typical Chicago stockyard plant women earned from $2.96 a week working as a meat packer to $6.18 as a feeder.

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118 In 1890, the average annual earnings of men and women workers in the United States were $498.71 and $267.97 respectively. United States Census Office, Twelfth Census of the United States, Taken in the Year 1900 Manufactures Part 1 Volume VII (Washington, D.C., 1902), Table XXXIX, cxv.Google Scholar

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122 Maher, Amy G., Bookkeepers, Stenographers and Office Clerks in Ohio 1914 to 1929 Bulletin of the Women's Bureau, No. 95 (Washington, D.C., 1932)Google Scholar, Table 6, 13.

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126 Although across the United States women held the majority of bookkeeping positions, there were exceptions. One exception was the City of New York. In a 1918 study-made for the Civil Service Reform Association of New York, Fannie Witherspoon and Anna Martin Crocker found that only 7 of 175 (4%) bookkeepers employed by the cits were women. In contrast, 199 of 438 clerks were women (45.4%), 231 of 311 typewriters (typists) were women (74.3%), and 628 of 1,145 stenographers were women (54.8%). Witherspoon, Fannie M. and Crocker, Anna Martin, Opportunities for Women in the Municipal Civil Service of the City of New York (New York, 1918), 47.Google Scholar

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128 Although the majority of bookkeepers in Massachusetts were women, the majority of upper wage positions were held by men. A 1926 study of 5,195 bookkeepers/accountants (1,889 men; 3,306 women) in Massachusetts reported that 34.9% of the men earned $40 or more a week, whereas, only 2.8% of the women did. However, of four office categories (clerical, stenographic, office machines operators, bookkeeping), women bookkeepers reported the highest average earnings. “Salaries of Office Employees in Massachusetts,” Monthly Labor Review 24 (Jan. 1927): 141–143.

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134 A 1922 study of 34,655 women employed in 31 industries in New Jersey reported that the median weekly earnings for all women were $14.95. Women in New Jersey Industries: A Study of Wages and Hours Bulletin of the Women's Bureau, No. 37 (Washington, D.C., 1924), Table 3, 13.

135 In general, women office workers earned more than women employed in other occupations. A 1923 study (25,598 factory, 2,389 store, and 2,586 office workers) of women's wages in Hamilton County (Cincinnati) by the Ohio Industrial Relations and Industrial Commission reports that while only 16.6% of office workers had weekly earnings of less than $15.00 a week, 40.8% of store workers and 50.9% of factory workers earned less than $15.00. Rich, Frances Ivins, Wage-Earning Giris in Cincinnati (Cincinnati, Oh., 1927), 15.Google Scholar

136 “Situations Wanted/Help Wanted,” The New York Times 69 (16 Feb. 1920): 25, 26. “Situations Wanted/Help Wanted,” The New York Times 69 (15 March 1920): 29, 30. “Situations Wanted/Help Wanted,” The New York Times 69 (15 April 1920): 28, 29.

137 “Women in Accountancy,” The Certified Public Accountant 15 (April 1935): 244.

138 National Industrial Conference Board, Inc., Clerical Salaries in the United States 1926 (New York, 1926), 7.Google Scholar

139 Hager, Alice Rogers, “Occupations and Earnings of Women in Industry,” in The Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science Volume CXLIII May, 1929 (Philadelphia, Pa., 1929), Table III, 71.Google Scholar

140 Elliott, Margaret and Manson, Grace E., Earnings of Women in Business and the Professions Michigan Business Studies Volume 3 No. 1 (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1930), 4–5Google Scholar; Table 10, 22.

141 Byrne, Harriet A., Women Who Work in Offices Bulletin of the Women's Bureau, No. 132 (Washington, D.C., 1935), 10.Google Scholar

142 In 1926, of 287 (105 factory, 109 store, and 73 office) randomly selected “working girls” in Cincinnati, 40% of the women who worked in offices had some college education while 5% of the store workers had some college education; however, none of the women factory workers had attended college. Rich, Frances Ivins, Wage-Earning Girls in Cincinnati (Cincinnati, Oh., 1927), 6; Table XXII, 56.Google Scholar

143 Byrne, Women Who Work in Offices, 6, 18.

144 Rotella, “Tne Transformation of the American Office,” 52.

145 C. Wright Mills, White Collar, 206.

146 Davies, Woman's Place is at the Typewriter, 56.

147 Hooks, Women's Occupations Through Seven Decades, 75.

148 Davies, Woman's Place is at the Typewriter, 55.

149 Fine, The Souls of the Skyscraper, xvii.

150 Baker, Technology and Woman's Work, 215.

151 From 1870 to 1930, men were substantially less likely to graduate from high school than women. Typically, each year, less than 45% of all high school graduates and often less than 40% of public high school graduates were men. For example, for the school year 1894–95, Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1894–95 Volume 1 (Washington, D.C., 1896), Table 2, 38; Table 12, 49 reports that of 42,393 public high school graduates, 15,158 (35.8%) were men and of the total 54,353 high school graduates, 21,210 (39%) were men.

152 DeVault, Sons and Daughters of Labor, 17.

153 Adams, Elizabeth Kemper, Women Professional Workers: A Study Made for the Women's Educational and Industrial Union (New York, 1921), 225.Google ScholarAmott, Teresa and Matthaei, Julie, Race, Gender, and Work A Multicultural Economic History of Wotnen in the United States (Boston, Mass., 1991), 127.Google Scholar

154 Herman Melville in his short novel, Bartleby The Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, vividly describes the duties of a law-copyist (scrivener). Melville writes: “It is, of course, an indispensable part of a scrivener's business to verify the accuracy of his copy, word by word. Where there are two or more scriveners in an office, they assist each other in this examination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original. It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether intolerable.” Melville, Herman, “Bartleby The Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street,” in Shorter Novels of Herman Melville Black and Gold Edition (n.p., 1942), 118.Google Scholar

155 Dex, Shirley, The Sexual Division of Work Conceptual Revolutions in the Social Sciences (New York, 1985), 192.Google Scholar

156 Eaton and Stevens, Commercial Work and Training for Girls, 214.

157 In his seminal work on human capital theory, Becker, Gary S., Human Capital A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education (New York, 1964), 7–33Google Scholar, distinguishes between two basic types of training and skills, general and specific. Firm-general skills increase employee's productivity for many employers and are inter changeable among several employers. These skills often are learned outside of the firm. Firm-specific skills increase the future productivity of workers of the firms providing it. Building upon Becker's human capital theory, Elyce J. Rotella emphasizes that mechanization reduced the job-specific skill components of most office jobs. Instead, clerical work often required firm-general skills (typing, stenography, machine adding) that were learned outside of the firm (often in high schools or commercial schools). As women were willing to work for lower wages and many women possessed the required firm-general skills, companies favored the hiring of women. Moreover, “the availability of an abundant supply of cheap female labor provided an incentive to adopt the mechanized and routinized production techniques that used workers with firm-general skills.” Rotella, Elyce J., “The Transformation of the American Office: Changes in Employment and Technology,” The Journal of Economic History 41 (March 1981): 57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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159 Baker, Technology and Woman's Work, 215.

160 Coyle, “Women in the Clerical Occupations,” 183.

161 Strom, Beyond the Typewriter, 192.

162 Another factor that contributed to the large number of single bookkeepers was the middle-class background of many of them. For example, Lynn Y. Weiner writes: “From 1900 to 1940, middle-income white wives typically did not work outside the home.” Weiner, From Working Girl to Working Mother, 83. Even if a woman worked in an office that allowed her to continue work after marriage, there often was social pressure on her to leave her job. Aron, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Civil Service, 41.

163 History of the Federal Civil Service: 17S9 to the Present (Washington, D.C., 1941), 27. Under the 1864 statute, women could be employed in one of four clerical classes, at a salary not to exceed $600, which was approximately half of what a male clerk earned.

164 Nienburg, Women in the Government Service, 27–28, 32.

165 Liszt, Charlotte G., “Opportunities for Women Accountants in the Federal Civil Service,” The Woman C.P.A. (Oct. 1942): 64.Google Scholar

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167 Wagner, John W., “Defining Objectivity in Accounting,” The Accounting Review 40 (July 1965): 600.Google Scholar

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169 In regard to the changing office place and the perception of women in it, Maurine Weiner Greenwald writes, “Mechanization and specialization resulted in a tri-level stratification of the office labor force: men trained to deal with matters involving judgment, experience, and responsibility; semi-skilled female machine operatives; and unskilled women assigned routine tasks.” Greenwald, Maurine Weiner, Women, War, and Work: The Impact of World War I on Women Workers in the United States (Westport, Conn., 1980), 9–10.Google Scholar

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171 Perks, R. W., Accounting and Society (London, 1993), 11.Google Scholar

172 Paul J. Miranti, Accountancy Comes of Age, 29, points out that most American public accounting associations “wished to emulate” the success of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales “who earlier had succeeded in obtaining a prominent place in society for their special expertise.” However, the Institute of Chartered Accountants had failed to act on suggestions that women be admitted to the Institute in both 1895 and 1909. It was only after the passage of The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919, that opened professional bodies to women, that women were accepted as members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. Howitt, Harold, The History of The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales 1870–1965 and of Its Founder Accountancy Bodies 1870–1880 (London, 1966)Google Scholar; repr., The History of The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales 1870–1965 (New York, 1984), 54, 6.5–66.

173 DeVault, Sons and Daughters of Labor, 22.

174 In addition to the perception that women were not suited to become managers, a similar perception was widely held that women could not understand management practices, and therefore, they should not write about such practices. An illustration of this perception is the case of Lillian Gilbreth, one of the major contributors to the early development of management thought. When the granting of her Ph.D. at the University of California was delayed due to a residence requirement, Lillian and Frank (her husband) Gilbreth sought a company to publish the thesis (“The Psychology of Management“), “only to be told by several of them (publishing companies) that thev could not undertake publication of a book on such a subject by a woman author.” However, the journal, Industrial Engineering, agreed to publish the thesis as a series of articles (May 1912-May 1913), under the name of F. M. Gilbreth. The following year, a small publishing house agreed to publish the thesis as a book; “provided it bore the name of L. M. Gilbreth… and that no publicity be given the fact that the author was a woman.” Yost, Edna, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth: Partners for Life (New Brunswick, N.J., 1949), 213.Google Scholar

175 Daniel A. Wren describes the duties of the social (welfare) secretary: “The social secretary listened to and handled grievances, ran the sick room of the workshop, provided for recreation and education, arranged transfers for dissatisfied workers, administered the dining facilities, prepared nutritious menus, and looked after the moral behauor of unmar ried female factory employees.” Wren, Daniel A., The Evolution of Management Thought (New York, 1994), 158.Google Scholar

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178 For several decades, women would continue to find public accounting a difficult profession to enter. In 1945, Jennie Palen, one of the first women to be hired by a major accounting firm, wrote: “Vocational advisers are in agreement that it (public accounting) has been the most difficult of all the professions for women to break into.” Palen, Jennie M., “The Position of the Woman Accountant in the Postwar Era,” The Journal of Accountancy 78 (July 1945): 27.Google Scholar

179 For example, in 1924, the State of New York required five years of accounting experience of which two vears had to be in the employment of a certified public accoun tant. In New Jersey, three years of public accounting experience were required. “C.P.A. Requirements in New York and New Jersey,” The Pace Student 9 (Nov. 1924): 187–188.

180 Editorial—Women in Accountancy,” The Journal of Accountancy 36 (Dec. 1923): 443–445.

181 “Editorial—Women in Accountancy,” 444.

182 Trail, Nettie A., “Women in Accountancy,” The Certified Public Accountant 4 (March 1925): 140.Google Scholar

183 Fischer, Anne B., “Where Women are Succeeding,” Fortune 116 (3 Aug. 1987): 86.Google Scholar