REREAD: Kate in Advertising
Apr. 15th, 2012 08:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllI have a tag labelled: genre: career story. It’s a genre that fascinates me, covering at least two subgenres, which I talk about here, although, in the post, I’m concentrating on Girl’s Name, Job Title in Exotic Sounding Adventure serial mysteries and not the ‘straight up career girl stories’ as I describe books like the one I’m about to review. Actually, I’m not sure that that’s the best name for the subgenre.
Kate in Advertising : Ann Barton. The Bodley Head, 1961.
This is a standalone book (as far as I know) about how a girl progresses in her job, although as I hope to show, calling it a career story isn’t precisely right. However, Kate Wilson, Copywriter certainly girl has no time to be a Part-Time Sleuth!
By the by, I wonder whether career stories for boys have ever been a feature – I tend to gloss over most boys' own books at best and get annoyed when there’s a heap of them and no female counterparts on the bookshelves or bookheaps of second hand book shop, so I wouldn’t know. I suspect there might be of the Part-Time Sleuth variety.
This second impression in 1961 of a fifties story for girls is typical of its subgenre, good enough at doing what it sets out to do, except it’s already out of date, as the author’s note apologetically makes clear, thanks to the growing influence of television. In the book, TV sets were still exotic and print spearheaded any advertising campaign.
Kate is, if not a cipher, a good-natured, diligent girl who was looking for something more than her secretarial job – the book begins with her job interview. Aged twenty-one, she lives with her parents and teacher sister and became interested in advertising, specifically copywriting, after reading an article about it. Furthermore, she’s always been interested in words and writing. Taken on as a trainee, when she first starts, her ambition is to be a career woman like her immediate boss. She carries a glum conviction that she’ll get the sack for any mistake she makes while also hoping that, some day, she’ll be one of the copywriters chosen by the firm to go over to gain experience in New York for a six month period.
We follow her on her first week, where she gets to meet representatives of all the various departments. They’re nearly all nice, helpful and informative, except perhaps for the very nice art department head’s deputy Barbara, who doesn’t like the way John Primrose calls Kate Wilson ‘honey’.
Over the next few months, Kate eventually gets to write some copy, experiences what a rush job means and learns the hard way that a copywriter has to check proofs thoroughly. Although her parents are constantly exhorting her to take it easy – she can work quite late at the drop of the hat – she learns a lot and proves herself within the company.
As with all books of this type written in the 1950s, it has to manage a delicate job of attracting its girl readership and giving a rounded view of what the job would mean. It’s superficially open to girls making a career of the job and seems to encourage that ambition, but it won’t do not to have just a touch of romance. Here it is with Primrose. Kate’s father is in an amusing position, not wanting his daughter to overwork – perhaps he would not be so solicitous if she were a son - but not overjoyed about Kate’s growing friendship with Mr Primrose, which he seems to expect will take her away from them and end her salaried days. One of Kate’s colleagues is already married, but gives up her job when she becomes pregnant – she’s replaced by a trainee who actually is as careless and slipshod as Kate imagined she was at her conscience-stricken ebbs. Another woman gets engaged to a colleague and gives up the job when they tie the knot. It is, however, suggested that she may be too restless to remain a housewife. Kate ends the story on her way to New York (success!), but it’s strongly hinted that she’s determined to return to a waiting Primrose and that, although she’s found a job she clearly loves and is suited for, she will give it up for her future family. Her mother is a housewife through and through, and, partly because of what she learns at work and partly because she grows up, Kate’s admiration for her increases. As far as I could tell, most of these girls (as even married Jenny, who must be in her late twenties at least, is described) work on ‘women’s accounts’ – to do with domestic products, women’s hobbies or clothes – which is presumably why there are so many women copywriters in this story. These attitudes jump out several generations on!
As I said, there’s no mystery subplot – there’s one subtly handled episode in which Barbara behaves unprofessionally in an attempt to get Kate in trouble. The focus is on demystifying the job while selling it, but not in too aggressive a way. The latter is of a piece with the way that the advertising industry of the time is described – it’s about gentle persuasion, you see.
Kate in Advertising : Ann Barton. The Bodley Head, 1961.
This is a standalone book (as far as I know) about how a girl progresses in her job, although as I hope to show, calling it a career story isn’t precisely right. However, Kate Wilson, Copywriter certainly girl has no time to be a Part-Time Sleuth!
By the by, I wonder whether career stories for boys have ever been a feature – I tend to gloss over most boys' own books at best and get annoyed when there’s a heap of them and no female counterparts on the bookshelves or bookheaps of second hand book shop, so I wouldn’t know. I suspect there might be of the Part-Time Sleuth variety.
This second impression in 1961 of a fifties story for girls is typical of its subgenre, good enough at doing what it sets out to do, except it’s already out of date, as the author’s note apologetically makes clear, thanks to the growing influence of television. In the book, TV sets were still exotic and print spearheaded any advertising campaign.
Kate is, if not a cipher, a good-natured, diligent girl who was looking for something more than her secretarial job – the book begins with her job interview. Aged twenty-one, she lives with her parents and teacher sister and became interested in advertising, specifically copywriting, after reading an article about it. Furthermore, she’s always been interested in words and writing. Taken on as a trainee, when she first starts, her ambition is to be a career woman like her immediate boss. She carries a glum conviction that she’ll get the sack for any mistake she makes while also hoping that, some day, she’ll be one of the copywriters chosen by the firm to go over to gain experience in New York for a six month period.
We follow her on her first week, where she gets to meet representatives of all the various departments. They’re nearly all nice, helpful and informative, except perhaps for the very nice art department head’s deputy Barbara, who doesn’t like the way John Primrose calls Kate Wilson ‘honey’.
Over the next few months, Kate eventually gets to write some copy, experiences what a rush job means and learns the hard way that a copywriter has to check proofs thoroughly. Although her parents are constantly exhorting her to take it easy – she can work quite late at the drop of the hat – she learns a lot and proves herself within the company.
As with all books of this type written in the 1950s, it has to manage a delicate job of attracting its girl readership and giving a rounded view of what the job would mean. It’s superficially open to girls making a career of the job and seems to encourage that ambition, but it won’t do not to have just a touch of romance. Here it is with Primrose. Kate’s father is in an amusing position, not wanting his daughter to overwork – perhaps he would not be so solicitous if she were a son - but not overjoyed about Kate’s growing friendship with Mr Primrose, which he seems to expect will take her away from them and end her salaried days. One of Kate’s colleagues is already married, but gives up her job when she becomes pregnant – she’s replaced by a trainee who actually is as careless and slipshod as Kate imagined she was at her conscience-stricken ebbs. Another woman gets engaged to a colleague and gives up the job when they tie the knot. It is, however, suggested that she may be too restless to remain a housewife. Kate ends the story on her way to New York (success!), but it’s strongly hinted that she’s determined to return to a waiting Primrose and that, although she’s found a job she clearly loves and is suited for, she will give it up for her future family. Her mother is a housewife through and through, and, partly because of what she learns at work and partly because she grows up, Kate’s admiration for her increases. As far as I could tell, most of these girls (as even married Jenny, who must be in her late twenties at least, is described) work on ‘women’s accounts’ – to do with domestic products, women’s hobbies or clothes – which is presumably why there are so many women copywriters in this story. These attitudes jump out several generations on!
As I said, there’s no mystery subplot – there’s one subtly handled episode in which Barbara behaves unprofessionally in an attempt to get Kate in trouble. The focus is on demystifying the job while selling it, but not in too aggressive a way. The latter is of a piece with the way that the advertising industry of the time is described – it’s about gentle persuasion, you see.
