Women, business and the post office

‘Just your luck to launch a new magazine in the middle of the biggest economic crisis in 100 years !’  This is a remark  made to me quite often (mostly in jest! ). Despite this, as ever with women’s business initiatives, at HerStoria optimism and hard work  are our touchstones. Obviously we need HerStoria to be financially secure, but our aim is to fly the flag for women’s history, not to rival Rupert Murdoch!

The problems of the economy were brought to the front of my mind today when I received a letter from Royal Mail detailing their annual price increase. From 6 April 2009 postage costs are rising from between 8-12%, something which has a major impact on us as HerStoria is a mainly subscription magazine. (We’re NOT going to put our rates up however!) 

Post in the past

Our post comes very late in the day. I’m always surprised by what seems the relative efficiency of postal deliveries in the 19c and early 20c. I remember doing archive  research on the vast correspondence of a married couple living at that time. They wrote to each other 2 or 3 times a day (sometimes  from abroad)  and seemed always to receive the mail the next day (or even that day!). I’m sure there are many historical reasons for this seeming contrast, but you cannot fail to admire the Victorians for their efficient systems. The couple I researched often used ready-franked half-penny postcards, an innovation introduced in 1870 which extended the famous ’penny post’  which had been in use since 1840.  I wish it were so simple now!  

Women and the Post Office

It was around that time (1873) that women were first permitted to work as clerks in the Post Office, under supervision, as part of an experiment in the Returned Letter Office. The number of women employed in the Post Office increased dramatically when it took over the management of the telegraph system. Many women became telegraph operators at the end of  the 19c; as early as 1853 the International and Electric Telegraph Company had introduced  a staff of young women, supervised by a ‘matron’, who quickly replaced most of the men. The job was seen as routine but not too arduous – ideal for women who were also cheaper to employ.

In 1875, as women’s employment grew, the Post Office imposed a ‘marriage bar’ which meant that married women were ineligible for appointment and that single female employees had to resign if they married.  This ban was not removed until 1946, over 70 years later. In today’s recession there are reports that women sometimes face an ‘unofficial’ marriage bar, not hired because employers’  fear they may take maternity leave and be eligible for maternity benefits. (Wasn’t this the gist of Alan Sugar’s recent complaint against working women of childbearing age and grumble that maternity rights had  ’gone too far’ ?) 

The 19c and 21c -  as an historian of the 19c I am often struck by the parellels, and left wondering who were the most advanced?!