These ads were in some cases very specific about what type of female employee they wanted.įor example, while these 1885 Help Wanted ads from New York include jobs like cooking and cleaning-they also contain ads that request women of a certain religion or ethnic background. Help Wanted-Female advertisements were not just employers looking for any qualified woman to apply for their job offerings. Source: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Classified ads often included the headings “Help Wanted-Female” and “Help Wanted-Male.” In the 1970s this segregation of ads was deemed illegal, and Help-Wanted ads evolved to the advertisements we are accustomed to reading today. They didn’t just provide qualifications the employer was looking for they sometimes specified race, gender, and even age. Prior to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, those classified advertisements were very specific. So how did your female ancestor find employment? One option would have been the local newspaper’s Help Wanted advertisements. But for many women and girls, some sort of outside work was not an option-it was a financial necessity. What type of work did your female ancestor do? We often assume that our women ancestors were just “housewives” and didn’t work outside of the home. Introduction : Gena Philibert-Ortega is a genealogist and author of the book “ From the Family Kitchen.” In this blog post, Gena shows how “Help Wanted-Female” ads in historical newspapers can help you learn more about the employment opportunities that were available to your women ancestors-and learn about the places and eras they lived in.
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