Explore "White Collar" by C. Wright Mills on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Just the other day the first typist in the city of Philadelphia, who had served one firm 60 years, died at the age of 80. During her last days she recalled how it was in the earlier days. She had come into the office from her employer's Sunday school class in 1882. She remembered when the office was one rather dark room, the windows always streaked with dust from the outside, and often fogged with smoke from the potbellied stove in the middle of the room. She remembered the green eyeshade and the cash book, the leather-bound ledger and the iron spike on the desk top, the day book and the quill pen, the letter press and the box file.
At first there were only three in the office: at the high roll-top desk, dominating the room, sat the owner; on a stool before a high desk with a slanted top and thin legs hunched the bookkeeper; and near the door, before a table that held the new machine, sat the white-collar girl.