From Scribes To Secretaries In 5,000 Years; From .

Essays of an Information Scientist, Vol:9, p.112, 1986Current Contents, #15, p.3-8, April 14, 1986IIEUGENE GARFIELDIINSTITUTEFOR SCIENTIFIC(N FOR MA TIONe3501 MA RKETST,PHI LA DE LPHIA, PA 19104From Scribes5,000 Years;to InformationINumberto SecretariesinFrom SecretariesManagersin 20April15WereI to classify the many Current(CC3 ) readers who have written tome over the years, one of the largest categorieswould be secretaries—those administrativeassistants,aides,general factotums,and confidantsofresearch scientists who do so much tomake work a pleasure rather than drudgery. This does not mean, of course, thatsecretarialwork is drudgery.We all“assist” others, in one way or another, tobe more efficient at what they do best.As in any occupation,a good secretaryaspires to high standardsof performance.My contacts with the secretaries of CCreaders have been varied. Often, thesesecretaries are quite outspoken.In theearly days of CC they were the first tosuggest that we provide authors’ addresses so they could write for reprintswithout going to the library. Then, whenwe added addresses, they informed usthat they needed zip codes or pointedout that the print was too small. Nowadays secretaries more often write to meabout the substance of essays rather thanthe mechanics of using CC. However, Ido hear from them when they believe wehave omitted a term in the index. Manyof them regularly check the indexes forone or more research scientists.I know from personal experience thevalue of an efficient assistant. Here atISP I depend on a staff of five personswith varied secretarialskills and experience to manage the flow of paperwork in and out of my office. Their activities include reading and sorting mail,Content@11214,1986filing and photocopying,placing andreceiving telephone calls, scheduling apmakingtravelarrangepointments,ments, doing library research, accessingcomputerand online databases,and,yes, typing and taking dictation.Simply listing these duties, however,does not fully convey the nature of thesecretary’s role-at1S1 or elsewhere.There is an intangibleaspect to thesecretary’s contribution,a value thatgoes far beyond the sum of the activitiesmentionedabove. The secretaryfrequently functions as a surrogate for theexecutive, preparing memos and reportsthat the boss will merely sign. In this waythe secretary becomes a kind of ghostwriter. I Furthermore,secretarial workinvolves organizing and controlling thatmost precious of commodities in any office: information.According to The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the word “secretary” canbe traced to the medieval Latin wordsecretaries,a term applied to scribes,notaries, and other confidential employees. It is derivedfrom the Latinsecretum,meaning secret. j One of theOED definitions for secretary, althoughlisted as “obsolete,” describes an important characteristicof the secretarial assistant: “One who is entrusted with private or secret matters; a confidant . . . inessare qualities that themost prized assistants bring to their jobs.The foregoing definition reminds usthat modern secretaries have their predecessors in antiquity. The scribes of an-

cient Egypt, for example, recorded theparticulars of business transactions, handled correspondence,and performedother tasks that are plainly secretarial.With skills in reading and writing, theywere among the best-educatedmen oftheir time. All men born to high positionin administration,the priesthood,andeven royalty received their first trainingas scribes.q Their schooling includedwork on practice compositions that extolled the virtues of the scribe’s calling.“Set your heart on being a scribe,” concluded one writing, “so you can directthe whole earth.”AEgyptian scribes had their counterparts in the scn”bae of ancient Rome and the grammateis of ancient Greece, who handled many clerical functions, including record keeping and correspondence. In the Middle Ages, secretarialtasks were performedprimarilybyclergymen. According to the OED, infact, the word “clerk” is derived from“cleric, ” meaning “of or pertaining tothe clergy.”T In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, notes sociologist MaryKathleen Ben6t, the clerical professionmoved away from the church. Such newskills as double-entrybookkeepingallowed clerks to achieve a measure of status and security in serving the rising merchant class. The proliferationof secretarial occupations occurred during the nineteenthcentury, in the wake of the IndustrialRevolution. In Woman h Place Is at theType writer, a history of women in theoccupations,MargeryW.clericalDavies notes that offices were small,cheerless, and staffed entirely by menprior to the 1860s.9 (p. 9) Male clerksworked at various jobs, including drafting letters, bookkeeping,and deliveringletters to other businesses. They wereknowledgeable in all aspects of their employers’ businesses.Davies comparesthese clerks to craftsmen. In most casesa clerkship was an apprenticeshipthatenabled a worker to learn a businessfrom top to bottom. A clerk who distin-guished himself could realistically hopeto become a manager or owner someday.In the US, women were excludedfrom office work until the Civil War,when 1,500 women were hired to fillclerical positions in the Treasury. 10 Inthe latter haff of the nineteenth century,businesses expanded rapidly owing toimproved manufacturingmethods andthe developmentof regional, national,and foreign markets. With this expansion came a surge in paperwork and aconsequent need for more clerks as wellas office mechanization. g (p. 28) Not surprisingly, the typewriter came on thescene at about this time. The first practical typewriter was invented by Christopher L. Sholes in 1867 and was introduced by the Remington company. (p. 33)Employers increasingly hired womento fill clerk-typist positions, developingthe rationalizationthat a woman couldoperate typewriter keys more easily thana man could, because a woman’s fingersare more dexterous.g (p. 55) More inpoint was their greater literacy. In theUS more women than men were graduating from high schooIs. g (p. 56) But themost importantreason for the largescale acceptanceof women into theclerical professions, according to ElyceJ. Rotella, Departmentof Economics,Indiana University,Bloomington,wastheir apparent willingness to work forlower wages. 11 (p. 162)Between 1870 and 1930, clerical workbecame firmly established as a femaleoccupation.By 1890, women made up64 percent of all workers classified astypists or stenographers.By 1930, thatfigure had grown to over 95 percent. 1I(p. 125)Early in the 1900s, sh the secretary from typists,stenographers,and other clerical workers.g (p. 130) In 1924, for example,W.W. Charters and Isadore B. Whitley,University of Pittsburgh, published their113

Analysisof SecretarialTmits, a survey examiningDutiesandthe responsiof successfulbilities and characteristicssecretaries.lzIn a subsequent study in 1934, Frederick G. Nichols, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, noted thatthe term ‘(secretary” was being indiscriminately applied to general typists,stenographers,andotherclerks. IsNichols pointed out that there was a considerabledistinctionbetweentheseworkers and the private or personal secretary who worked closely with oneexecutive. While many clerical workerswere subject to increasing regimentationand monitoring on the job, the privatesecretary had comparative freedom andwas entrusted with a ariety of responsibilities. These included such tasks as organizing schedules and appointments,composing letters, and generally insulating the boss from distractions.q(p.129-62)Today, there is evidence that the private secretary, who works closely withone employer, may be giving way to the“team” secretary who works for a groupof people within an organization.Rosalie Silverstone and Rosemary Towler,City [University Business School, London, compared results of surveys of London secretaries taken in 1970 and 1981.They noted that the percentageofsecretaries who worked for an individualfell from 70 percent to 50 percent, whilethe percentageof secretariesworkingfor six or more people rose. Ii One implication of this change, according to theauthors, is that it disrupts the secretary’straditional career progression. A secretary’s status and progress depend largelyon the status and position of the boss forwhom she or he works. Working for agroup of people of mixed status presumably curbs this progress. 1 It is unfortunate,especially for largenumbers of unemployed men, to thinkof secretarial,stenographic,or dataentry work as strictly for women. For awell-placedindividual,amotivated,114secretarial position can be a good spot inwhich to learn how to run a business. Myfavorite example is the show-businessimpresario Billy Rose ( 1899-1966). Is Imentionedhim in my discussionofstenographicsystems. lb Rose, a champion writer of Gregg shorthand, servedas personal stenographer to the financierBernard Baruch and used the position tolearn much about the workings of thebusiness world.A recent article by Mary Joy Breton inthe magazine Working Woman proposesstrategies for secretarieswho seek tomove up the corporate ladder. 17Bretonrecommends,among other things, thatsecretaries study every aspect of theircompany, read books on managementtheory, and seize all opportunitiestodemonstrate their talents. The article includes profiles of successful executiveswho began their careers as secretaries.Breton also mentionsthe book TheManagerial Woman, by Margaret Hennig and Anne Jardim, INwhich describesthe careers of 25 female executives.Twenty-threeof these managers startedout as secretaries.Office AutonsatjonRelated to advancement of secretariesis the issue of office automation.Improvementsin computertechnologyhave brought a proliferation of automated equipmentto the office, includingword processors,data-entry terminals,and personal computers.A recent report on office automation from the USDepartment of Labor, Women’s Bureau,estimates that as many as 7 million workers in the US are using computer-baseddisplay terminals on the job. 19(p. I ) Thereport distinguishes between two different scenarios in office automation. In socalled “low tech” settings, where dataand word-processingoperations are centralized in pools, conditions are highlyregimented and prospects for advancement are unpromising. In other offices,however, automated systems are decentralized, allowing secretariesto spend