ABSTRACT
Traditional social scientists have been, curiously, little interested in clerical work and even less in the feminization of clerical work. This chapter explores the introduction and spread of typewriting in the British Civil Service before the First World War. Contrary to the trite scenario, the introduction of typewriting into the Civil Service was problematic – a protracted, fragmentary and discontinuous process. Contrary to the trite scenario, women were neither the first choice nor the ‘natural’ candidates for employment on typewriting duties. The Treasury’s continued efforts to undermine women typists’ position and the Post Office’s creation of a sub-standard grade and its rapid transfer of typing work from boys to women had the effect of degrading – ‘lowering in honour, estimation, social position, etc.’ The picture of typewriting which emerges from this examination of the ‘specific historical situation’ of the Civil Service before the First World War is thus considerably at variance with the trite scenario.
