In Business for Herself: Typewriters, "Pot Hooks," and Female Entrepreneurship in the 19th Century

While the history of female clerical workers has been the subject of a number of studies, scholars have generally focused on these women’s experiences—including the many challenges and limitations they faced—in their roles as employees. By the end of the twentieth century, some critics would come to see the typewriter as symbolic of women’s subordinate position in the workforce. Through an examination of contemporary periodicals, particularly The Phonographic World (once the leading periodical for the stenographic profession), this paper revisits the early decades of the typewriter in order to explore women’s ambition and agency as they created new opportunities for themselves and other women.  Although the typewriter was often given credit in the popular press for opening new avenues of employment for women, the practice of stenography played an earlier, crucial role in women’s entrance into the office.  Aided by the common perception that teaching was a respectable occupation for women, some women who had already learned stenography began teaching new women the skill, including in their own schools for shorthand instruction.  Many women also realized that shorthand—soon to be complimented by the typewriter—could lead to lucrative work in the legal fields, government, and business.  Some started their own businesses to provide stenographic and typewriting services, with the most successful hiring additional women as workloads increased.   Elsewhere, female stenographers displaced men in respected public positions, in the process challenging and changing the laws (and public opinion) that once prevented women from holding such positons.