“IS A CAREER IN CLERICAL WORK FOR YOU?“ 1970s OFFICE JOBS CAREER GUIDANCE FILM XD12144

Want to support this channel and help us preserve old films? Visit Visit our website This color educational film, one of a series of forty created for counseling purposes, is about the careers available in the clerical field. This was made circa the early 1970s, and likely shown in high school and junior college classrooms. Opening (live action and animated): people sit in a classroom, type on typewriters and punchcard computer terminals, and use microfilm, work in an office. A woman sit and thinks. She could be a file clerk, a typist, or a typing supervisor, a stenographer, or a secretary (:06-1:27). An African American woman thinks and could be a bookkeeper, a cashier or a bank teller. A boy thinks about possibly being office machine operator or a computer operator. Other possibilities include: a woman is a telephone operator, an African American woman is a receptionist, a man is a shipping/receiving clerk, a stock clerk, a mail clerk, and a mail carrier. Students sit in a classroom (1:28-2:21). Main titles (2:22-2:33). An African American puts together a puzzle of the United States. Military man sits at a desk. High rise buildings. Men and women walk into a building. Newspaper ads for a secretary, stenographer, typist, bookkeeper, and accounting clerk. Buildings for banks, insurance companies, manufacturing establishment, and a mall. Exterior of a United States Court House, a college, a door for a law office, and an armed services office (2:34-3:29). Women, white and African American, are featured. Students walk down the stairs in a high school. A teacher teaches young women, white and African Americans. A woman files, another listens. A paper says ’spelling’ on it. African American women on the job at desks and being supervisors. A woman talks with a boy (3:30-5:12). Close on a typewriter as it types: Stenographers and secretaries make up the largest group of clerical workers, 95% are women. A hand writes, fingers type on an IBM selectric typewriter. A woman on the phone, another woman makes copies. A woman takes dictation. A court stenographer. An older woman who’s a secretary opens mail, talks on the phone, fixes her desk, purchases a gift for him. An African American woman types, another sits at a desk and talks with a man. She then answers the phone (5:13-6:53). Typewriters on every desk, secretaries and office workers work. Close on fingers typing. Close on a stopwatch. Typists should have: finger dexterity, accuracy, neatness, and the ability to concentrate. A woman types as another drops something off at her desk. Close on fingers typing. A woman takes dictation from her boss. A woman sits at a desk and writes with a pencil in a ledger. Pages to a book are turned. An African American woman types, another speaks to a colleague. A paper is sent on a conveyor belt type machine from one side of the room to the other. A bookkeeping machine, a billing machine, a tabulating machine, adding and calculating machines, a copier, duplicating machine, and equipment for processing mail. A mail sorter. A younger man stands near an older boss-type individual. Armed services students attend class. A younger man trains an African American woman on a bookkeeping machine (6:54-9:17). Machine operators need to have: finger dexterity, hand & eye coordination, and good vision. Men in an office with computers. A woman uses a key puncher. An African American console operator uses a key punch machine. An African American woman uses a UNIVAC mainframe computer. A woman uses a mail sorter. A hand touches a UNIVAC mainframe computer. UNIVAC mainframe computers are around the workers. Close on the computer console lights. A hand places a ten dollar bill on a table. Hands in a register make change (9:18-10:51). Men work with registers at various jobs. A man teaches a class how to use a register. Figures are written down on a piece of paper, buttons pushed on a register. Women of various races work as cashiers. Bank tellers, men and women of various races are in these positions. Telephone operators. An African American woman works a switchboard. Operators deal with various problems. Receptionists at work, almost all are women (10:52-13:18). Men in various positions as clerks, working with mail and as mail carriers. Women in an office. Screen is split into thirds to show three different clerical positions with men and women. Men and women of various races in various clerical positions. A woman opens a booklet. Armed Forces recruiting office. A boy talks with his counselor.(13:19-15:21). End credits, a boy gets in a car and drives away (15:22-16:12). This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit