The “Roaring Twenties” saw an enormous increase in the creation and expansion of small businesses.
If you were a shopkeeper or local manufacturer, you might have limited education – and most likely never had any training to manage your orders of goods or raw materials, track shipments by mail or railroad, manage customer accounts, and complete business correspondence.
The universal adoption of the typewriter created another need for trained assistants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter
Across the United States many secretarial schools or “business colleges” were established to meet the burgeoning need for secretaries who had general business training.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretarial_school
Some of these training institutions still exist, although the specific reference to “secretaries” has been abandoned.
+ + + + + + +
This postcard is a stamped request for a catalog of the 1928 “National School for Secretaries”.
I cannot find a specific history of this organization, although several websites and newspaper articles make reference to its creation circa 1920.
The school was operated, at least for part of its history, at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
On the internet, one can find hundreds of biographical references to former students of the National School for Secretaries.
This printed postcard is addressed to the National Association of Taxicab Owners in Chicago.
I assume that the organization sent the catalogue offer to its members in response to needs identified by the association.
This campaign may have been conducted in conjunction of the National Chamber of Commerce which endorsed the National School for Secretaries in 1922.
One hopes that the owners of taxicabs took advantage of the opportunity to train a secretary.
