Salaries for Stenographers and Sylvia

In 2013, the median annual salary in the U.S. is $45,790; in 2013 a stenographer's median annual salary is $36,325. "Little or no degree of creativity and latitude required," notes the job description. Sylvia Plath knew that, and knew that she and shorthand weren't a good fit.

Lies: There hasn't been "profit" in stenography for 100 years.

Professional stenography began as a largely male occupation; we have Cicero's speeches because his slave invented his own form of shorthand. In the Victorian era, shorthand writers (mostly males, well-paid, using the Pitman system) had clubs and monthly magazines and "translated" classics into shorthand; it was even faddish. Around 1900, stenography began to be derided as women's work. "I'm going to be a stenographer when I get big," assserted eight-year-old Nan Bobbsey, in the first chapter of the first book of The Bobbsey Twins series (1904), proving that by then, stenography was an entirely acceptable occupational goal for middle-class girls. She'd earn about $35 every two weeks. In 1950 legal stenographers in the California Department of Justice--legal stenographers were among the best-paid--earned $2,770 per year or $106.53 every two weeks. In 1974 I was earning $168 every two weeks or $4,368 per year; median household income then was $9,718.

Is that proof enough that stenography was a job and not a career? Stenography and other secretarial skills allowed women the illusion of choice: Office jobs in industries that interested them, although with no chance for advancement, autonomy or even enough of a salary to feed and house them well. In a parallel, the family of a minority male working as a bank security guard could say he had a career "in banking."

Sylvia Plath saw this, and resented and refused it. Aurelia Plath saw the same but urged her to accommodate. Sylvia won this round. In 1957, age 24, Sylvia Plath was offered her first salaried position: a one-year teaching appointment at Smith College, teaching three sections of Freshman English per semester, for $4,200 (Letters Home, 12 March 1957). This kind of pay and status put her far ahead of the "stenos" of the time.