Hello everyone, time for a bit more on the working life of Aussie’s in the 1890’s.
This week we will touch other jobs city workers had starting with the good old office worker. Until the invention of the typewriter in 1864 office workers were mostly male.
However by around 1890 more and more middle-class young women were being employed to work the new office machines. Business colleges were teaching the skills of typing and shorthand to more and more females, although these skill were still studied by males.
Despite the advent of typewriters the careful “public service” copperplate hand-writing was still paramount until the twentieth century for work in registers and ledger books.
Then there is the job of a telephonist with the invention of the telephone came new opportunities for young females for employment as a growing number of manual exchanges started to appear. From this time many middle-classes as well as offices had a telephone. Some home even had a special room just for the telephone.
Jo-AnneRamplings 
Dearest Jo-Anne,
Well that typing must have been a tremendous improvement for back then!
Shorthand I’ve had a couple of lessons in but my secretarial diploma was mainly focussed on typing blind with ten fingers.
Still grateful for having studied that!
Young people have no idea how it was back then, we had to change the lint for typing… And look now.
Hugs,
Mariette
I couldn’t get the hang of shorthand but I still touch type although those old typewriters would have made ones fingers strong with the keyboard not being like they are nowdays.
So very true! 🖨