Women and the Scottish Clerks' Association: From Contempt to Collegiality

Abstract

I This paper will trace the evolution of the attitudes expressed by the Scottish Clerks' Association (SCA) towards women in clerical work in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. For women trying to establish careers in office work it was necessary to be accepted as colleagues by men in organisations like the SCA. But, as Sylvia Walby noted, explanations of the increasing presence of women in clerical work in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century have emphasised the role of employers as the main actors in the feminisation of clerical work, while the resistance (or acceptance) by male clerks has been given less attention.' The evolution of the SCA's attitudes illustrates such resistance and then the growth of a kind of acceptance of women clerks in the early twentieth century; but this acceptance was within the context of male clerks' attempts to restructure their occupational group in order to preserve the better jobs for themselves. Clerical work as an occupation was ripe for restructuring due to the changes it was undergoing by the late nineteenth century. Earlier in that century, clerical work had been work mainly for men, in small offices, in close proximity to the owner of the firm. Men in clerical work would expect to support their families through that work, possibly to rise to become businessmen themselves, and to feel secure in their masculinity throughout their working lives. But by the end of the nineteenth century, the intimate, secure, small offices so often portrayed by Dickens were changing dramatically. Expanding enterprises in large-scale manufacturing, finance and transport required much larger offices and many more clerks than Dombey or Scrooge ever required. Even in small enterprises, increasing competitive pressures prompted greater attention to business decisions like costing and purchasing, and thus more thorough and careful record keeping and reporting were needed. In addition, a greater interest by the state in profitability and employment also created the need for increased record keeping and reporting. All of