Looking Back: 60th Anniversary, Nat'l Secretaries Day

On Wednesday, Americans will celebrate the 60th anniversary of National Secretaries Day (National Administrative Professionals Day) as part of National Administrative Professionals Week, April 22-28.

Each day, I'm going to add a post to this blog to take us back in time to what it was like to be a secretary (aka 'Girl Friday') in 1950s-era Washington.

As background, National Secretaries Day was created by the National Secretaries Association (International Association of Administrative Professionals) founded in 1942 in response to millions of women who traveled to the nation's capital to support the war effort.

In 1952, secretaries were honored for the first time with a day all their own. 

Two years later, on May 27, 1954, government, business and education leaders gathered for a banquet at the Sheraton Park Hotel commemorating the second anniversary of National Secretaries Day.

Reporter Patty Cavin covered the event for The Washington Post:

"Rep. [Timothy P.] Sheehan, speaking on women in politics admitted he couldn’t be brave enough to define women but described politics as 'the good of mankind.' He referred to a recent Chicago poll which disclosed that women think and talk of three things only. . .men, money and themselves. 

“'If you don’t pay attention to politics, the men will go off to war, the government will take all your money for taxes and you’ll be left with yourselves. It’s bound to be a pretty dull world. Thus, it behooves you to take an interest in government and the men you send to Congress,' Sheehan warned the secretaries." 

Two years later, on April 6, 1958, anticipation for National Secretaries Day grew as The Washington Post touted the headline, “Washington Secretaries to Observe Their ‘Week.’” 

"The biggest date in the notebooks of Washington’s 'Girl Fridays' is April 23, Secretaries’ Day. It’s the highlight of Nationwide Secretaries’ Week, proclaimed by Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks for April 20 through 26. . ."

On April 21, 1959, Helen Austern of the Post reported on a ceremony at the Advertising Club in which Barbara Wills was named "Miss Secretary of 1959."

She wrote:

"Poised, brownette Barbara received her rhinestone studded crown from last year’s winner, Mary Smith of Huntsville, Ala. . .

"Contestants were judged by appearance, secretarial school record, a tape recording of their voice, and recommendations from their bosses, in the early rounds of the competition.

"Also at yesterday’s luncheon at the Presidential Arms Hotel, which honored members’ Girl Fridays, was Mrs. Rita Bento, secretary to Ad Club publicity chairman Basil Littin, who praised the Nation’s crop of secretaries. She said they can always be counted on for a cheerful good morning, a second cup of coffee, courteous reminders, and the touches that a female can add to any office."

What a difference 60 years makes. These days bosses, half of whom are women, make their own appointments on iPhones, while standing in line at Starbucks fetching their lattes. 

Tomorrow I'll discuss Estelle Sharpe Jackson's "Girl Friday" column published in The Washington Post in the early 1950s.

Lois Lippman, the First African-American Secretary in The White House

In January 1953 Lois Lippman, 28, became the first African-American secretary in the White House when her boss, Charles F. Willis, Jr. of Citizens for Eisenhower in New York City, was appointed assistant to Chief-of-Staff Sherman Adams.

Lippman and her husband, attorney Romeyn Lippman, discussed the move, then concluded that it would be a big step in race relations.

“There has never before been a colored girl in the White House,” she told The Washington Post.

“We decided that when the barrier has been broken down once, it is difficult to build it up again.”

In an article published on June 4, 1953 in Jet magazine Lippman explained that, in addition to handling confidential mail and scheduling appointments with "high government brass," she supervised an all-white clerical staff of five. "Office relations are excellent," she said. "We all seem to be at ease with each other.”

The article continued: "Away from the White House, however, Mrs. Lippman discovered soon after arrival that in Washington, unlike Boston and New York, Jim Crow restricted her movements. But she says she has made an adjustment in this fashion: 'I go to the places where I’m supposed to go and stay away from the places where I’m not supposed to go.'

"Ask how she determined which places were not Jim Crow, she explains, 'I clipped a list from a Negro newspaper. It shows the restaurants and movies where Negroes are permitted to go.'

"Mrs. Lippman points out, however, that she has only one major problem in her job at the White House: 'Convincing people – especially small children – that I cannot get them an appointment with the President.'”

After giving birth to her first child the following year, Lippman returned to work until 1959 when her husband, who was with the Internal Revenue Service, was transferred to New York City.

Few people (including me until researching this story) are aware of the fact that after defeating the Nazis in Europe, it was President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, who is credited with taking action to desegregate the nation's capital. In addition to Lois Lippman, more than 400 other African-Americans were named to key jobs in his administration including Assistant Secretary of Labor J. Ernest Wilkins who became the first African-American to sit in on a cabinet meeting.

Upon Eisenhower's death on March 28, 1969, Simeon Booker, Jet Washington Bureau Chief, honored him in an article titled, "Eisenhower’s Untold Civil Rights Record: Broke Barriers for D.C. Blacks."

He wrote: "When Harlem’s Adam Clayton Powell wrote in a national magazine that Eisenhower had accomplished more in civil rights than all of the other presidents put together, pro-Democratic forces plotted the defeat of the Harlem lawmaker in 1956. With Powell campaigning across the country for Eisenhower’s re-election, Democratic presidential hopeful Adlai Stevenson [1952 & 1956 elections] showed where he stood on racial progress. Asked if he would use the Army, Navy and FBI to enforce in the South the Supreme Court’s integration edict he said:'I think that would be a great mistake. That is exactly what brought on the Civil War. We must proceed gradually, not upsetting habits or traditions that are older than the Republic.'”

After his inauguration on Jan. 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy continued the work started by President Eisenhower by further expanding opportunities for African-Americans at the highest levels of politics and government in the nation's capital.

Former Capitol Hill secretary recalls Kennedy assassination, Nov. 22, 1963

This is another story from Donna Lee, this time describing how she learned that President Kennedy was assassinated:

"The staff of Senator Yarborough, the senior senator from Texas and a liberal Democrat, and the staff of Senator Tower, a conservative Republican, had lunch together every Friday (those were the good old days). Although I was working for Senator Dominick at that time, I still went to lunch on Fridays with the group. We always went to a place near the railroad tracks called 'Spicer's.' I always made sure that I had quarters for the jukebox to play 'Puff, the Magic Dragon.' I can't hear that song today without thinking about that awful day.

"There was an elderly guard, in his 90s, on Senator Carl Hayden's patronage who was a boyhood friend. He manned the side entrance to the Old Senate Office Building that we used after lunch. As we walked up, he said, 'Kennedy's been shot.' I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that it might be fatal. I had to walk by Senator Tower's office to get to Senator Dominick's office. It only took a moment to step into Senator Tower's office with my friends. I saw Ken Towery, who was the administrative assistant, hanging up the telephone with tears streaming down his face. He looked up and simply shook his head without saying a word."

Two days later, on Sunday, Donna would experience yet another shock:

"I was in a cab on the way to the Senate Office Building to watch the funeral procession from The White House to the Capitol when the radio announced that Ruby had shot Oswald. The cab driver cursed and swerved over the curb and up a berm. It took him a few minutes to compose himself and get the cab back on the road. I was a lifelong Republican but, as you say, it didn't matter. The sadness just permeated all of Washington. I stayed until the Christmas recess. My dad had built a lodge/motel in Aspen so I went back there to work after Christmas."