bygone secretaries

a vintage course for office assistants

What does it mean to be a secretary? Even today, the responsibilities of a personal assistant are serious business, with seemingly simple tasks such as filing being more complicated than some men might think! In the past, such work was even more demanding, but there was nothing shameful about a man adopting what has come to be seen as a stereotypically female role. Moreover, the same traits needed to be a successful secretary are ones that many would benefit from cultivating - the ability to remain composed under pressure, a scrupulous attention to detail, and most importantly, a selfless desire to satisfy one's superiors.

bygone secretaries presents a genuine secretarial course from the previous century, with the intention of giving anyone who studies it a greater respect for the office administrators of today. It is an ideal accompaniment to secretarial role-play, but also offers a profitable way to keep a submissive man busy, as well as providing fascinating insights into the past.

Secretarial Studies

Secretarial Studies was published in 1922 and is, as its title suggests, a course for those studying to become a secretary. Over the course of thirty six sections, it covers a wealth of subjects including handling correspondence, banking and bookkeeping, as well as discussing methods of filing, business graphics and office efficiency. Although the relentless march of technology means that some of the material is of little relevance to the modern student, the course nevertheless provides the reader with an in-depth understanding of a secretary's responsibilities. Each lesson ends with exercises requiring further research, allowing the would-be secretary to be kept busy with minimal effort on the part of his superior. A modern foreword offers tips for how the book may be employed by a mistress wishing to set a sissy secretary to work, but even a man who lacks a strict female boss to guide him can benefit from studying this course.

• Preface

• Sections I - VI

• Sections VII - XII

• Sections XIII - XVIII

• Sections XIX - XXIV

• Sections XXV - XXX

• Sections XXXI - XXXVI

If you'd rather read about modern-day men working as secretaries, check out our stories about men as secretaries.