,'ii^A(:Y:i^fly;m:imi.mmi:o-.: ;\' BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS ALLEN ii- i Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/businessemploymeOOallerich BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS BY FEEDEKICK J. ALLEN, A.M. INVESTIGATOR OF OCCUPATIONS FOR THE VOCATION BUREAU OF BOSTON, AND AUTHOR OF " THE LAW AS A VOCATION," "THE SHOE INDUSTRY," AND OTHER VOCATIONAL STUDIES GINN AND COMPANY BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON ATLANTA • DALLAS • COLUMBUS • SAN FRANCISCO COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE VOCATION BUREAU OF BOSTON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 116.2 535fc '^> GINN AND COMPANY • PRO- PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. PREFACE When a young man faces the world and has to make his choice of a way to earn his living, three roads open before him, broadly speaking. The first is business, with its many lines. The second is that of the indus- tries, which include all skilled and unskilled labor in the manufacturing and building trades and in agriculture. The third is that of the professions, such as engineering, teaching, law, medicine, journalism, and the fine arts. This volume deals with the first of these divisions. It discusses the opportunities for employment in business. But business itself divides into three branches — Manu- facture, Trade, and Finance. Manufacturing has a busi- ness side which is just as important as the actual work of making things. Trade is buying and selling. Store- keeping, wholesale and retail, is another name for it. Finance is that branch of business which collects and preserves and distributes the supply of money on which the business world depends. We are most familiar with it in the form of Banking. In this book, then, is collected a large amount of information about the business of manufacturing, the business of trading, and the business of finance. This has been gathered during an investigation which covered several years and extended along many lines. It embodies the facts about business pursuits brought iii 355212 iv BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS together by the Vocation Bureau from its studies of many occupations, from that of the machinist to that of the lawyer. You will find that this book presents an intensive study of three definite business lines which include and typify the general activities of the business world. The business side of manufacture is treated with shoe manu- facture as a concrete example. Modern retail trade is illustrated by the department store. Finance, of course, is illustrated by a study of banking institutions. The manufacturing industries include all mechanical or manual occupations; retail trade is typical of mercan- tile and commercial occupations ; banking is the center of all pursuits whose nature is distinctly financial. Hence the organization of business firms and corporations, the functions and responsibihties of the various officers and business employees, the earnings, opportunities for ad- vancement, and requirements for success, as set forth in these pages, are probably in large degree those found in business employments throughout the field of human activity. Such is the method of this book. Its purpose is to enable young men to choose intelligently between busi- ness and other pursuits, to help make business em- ployees more efficient, and so to render some service to those who are interested in the problems of career building. FREDERICK J. ALLEN The Vocation Bureau, Boston CONTENTS PART ONE. EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES ON THE BUSINESS SIDE OF MANUFACTURE PAGE CHAPTER I. BUSINESS ORGANIZATION IN MANU- FACTURE : THE EXECUTIVE OFFICES 6 Choice of Vocation like Making an Investment, 5 — Growth of the Manufacturing Industries, 6 — Enlargement of Attendant Business, 7 — Organization in Manufacture, 8 — Dissecting an Industry : the Use of Charts, 9 — The Shoe Industry, 10 — Chart of Organization in Manufacture, 11 — Organization in Shoe Manufacture, 12 — Stockholders, 14 — The Manufacturing Corporation, 14 — Officers, 14 — Board of Directors, 15 — Executive Committee, 16 — General Manager, 16 — Mill Agent, 16 — Chairman of the Board of Directors, 17 — Secretary to the President, or Secretary to the Corporation, 17 — Assistant to the President, 18 — Responsibility of the Head of a Concern, 19 — Efficiency Manager, 19 — Efficiency Engineer, 19 — Professional Effi- ciency Expert, 20 — Line Organization and Staff Organiza- tion, 21 — Scientific Management, 21 — Chart - of Staff Organization in Manufacture, 22 — Requirements for Executive Officers, 23 — Salaries of Officers, 24 — Executive Offices, 25 — Employment Opportunities in Executive Offices, 25 — Employment or Labor Department, 25 — Em- ployment-Department Methods, 26 — Application Forms, 26-28— Employee's Record Cards, 29, 30, 33— Typical Regu- lations for Employees, 30-33 — Training of Employees, 33 — A Division of the Department, 33 — A Central Employ- ment Office, 34 — Positions in Employment Department, 34 — Employment Manager, 34 — The Supply of Labor, 35 — The Turn-Over of Labor, 36 — The Employment Problem, 37 — The Industrial Counselor, 38 — The Industrial De- velopment Expert, 38 vi BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS PAGE CHAPTER II. THE GENERAL OFFIGES 39 The General Offices, 39 — The Office Manager, 39 — Chart of the General Offices of a Manufacturing Company, 40 — The Order Department, 41 — The Receipt and Handling of Orders, 41 — Order Eorm, 42 — Special Schedule and the Day Sheet, 43 — A Typical Day Sheet, 43, 44 — Positions in the Order Department, 44 — The Correspondence Depart- ment, 44 — Positions in the Correspondence Department, 45 — The Stenographic Department, 45 — The Bookkeeping Department, 45 — Positions in the Bookkeeping Depart- ment, 46 — A Typical Balance Sheet, 46, 48, 49 — The Credit and Collection Department, 46 — Positions in the Credit and Collection Department, 46 — The Credit Man- ager, 47 — A Statement from an Employer, 50 — The Pur- chasing Department, 50 — Positions in the Purchasing Department, 51 — The Purchasing Agent, 51 — The Receiv- ing Department, 52 — The Job Room, 53 — Positions in the Receiving Department, 53 — The Publicity Department, 53 — General Advertising, 54 — Local Advertising, 55 — The Art Department, 55 — The Advertising Manager, 56 — The Display Rooms, 56 — Positions in the Advertising Depart- ment, 56 — The Mailing Department, 57 — Positions in the Mailing Department, 57 — The Sales Department, 58 — Other Methods of Securing Business, 59 — A Statistical Division, 60 — The Sample Rooms or Sample Department, 60 — Positions in the Sales Department, 60 — The Sales Manager, 61 — The Traveling Salesman, 61 — Educational or Other Requirement, 62 — A Typical Quotation, 62 — A Salesman's Advantages, 63 — A Salesman's Pay and Rou- tine, 63 — Disadvantages in a Salesman's Life, 65 — The Rise of the Modern Traveling Salesman, 66 — The Other Business Departments, 67 — The Information Office, 68 — Requirements for Service in the General Offices, 68 — Train- ing and Promotion in the Business Offices, 69 CHAPTER III. THE FACTORY OFFICES 71 Factory Routine, 71 — The Factory Offices, 72 — Chart of the Factory Offices of a Manufacturing Company, 73 — The Department of Advance Information, 74 — Positions in the Department of Advance Information, 75 — The Tag CONTENTS vii PAGE Department, 75 — The Foreman's Tag, 75, 76 — Positions in the Tag Department, 76 — The Dispatch Department, 76 — The Day-Sheet Section of the Dispatch Department, 77 — The Tracing Section of the Dispatch Department, 78 — Po- sitions in the Dispatch Department, 78 — The Efficiency Department, 78 — Example of a Eirm Conducting Efficiency Work, 79 — A Conservative View of Efficiency Work, 79 — Positions in the Efficiency Department, 80 — The Raw- Material Office or Department : Upper-Leather Office, 80 — Positions in the Upper-Leather Office, 81 — The Supply Department, 81 — Positions in the Supply Department, 82 — A Typical Requisition Form, 82 — The Schedule Depart- ment, 82 — Positions in the Schedule Department, 83 — The Checking Department, 83 — Positions in the Checking De- partment, 83 — The Pay-Roil Department, 83 — Employee's Weekly Record Card, 84 — Piece-Worker's Card, 85 — Positions in the Pay-Roll Department, 85 — The Cost Department, 86 — The Expense Department, 86 — The Messenger Service, 87 — Promotions from the Messenger Service, 87 — Industrial Service, 88 — Positions in the Industrial-Service Department, 89 — The Requirements for Service in the Factory Offices, 90 CHAPTER IV. THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES: STATISTICS 91 The Purpose of this Chapter, 91 — The Nature of Manu- facture, 91 — The Thirteenth Census, 91 — Earlier Censuses, 92 — The Figures for 1909, 92 — The Increase from 1899 to 1909, 92 — Comparison of Earnings on the Business Side and on the Manufacturing Side, 93 — The Probable Increase since 1909, 94 — Explanation of Census Statistics, 94 — In- dustrial Statistics and Business Opportunities, 96 — Value of Products, by Industries : 1909 and 1899, 97 — Continental United States and Noncontiguous Territory : 1909, 98 — General Comparison for the United States : 1909, 1904, and 1899, 99 — Comparison with Earlier Censuses, 100 — Accom- panying Statement, 101 — Manufacturing Centers of the United States, 102 — Per Cent Distribution of Average Number of Wage Earners, by Industries : 1909, 103 — List of the States according to Numbers of Wage Earners in viii BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS PAGE Manufacture: 1909, 104 — List of Leading Cities in the United States according to Numbers of Wage Earners in Manufacture : 1909, 105 — Distribution according to Size of Communities, 106- — Summary of Persons engaged in Man- ufacture in the United States : 1909, 107 — Comparison of Occupational Status of 1904 and 1909, 108 — Sex and Age Distribution by Industries, 108 — The Percentage of Persons on the Business Side of Manufacture, 109 PAET TWO. MODEEN RETAIL TEADE AS ILLUS- TRATED BY THE DEPARTMENT STORE CHAPTER V. THE DEPARTMENT STORE 113 Its Nature, 113 — From the Public Point of View, 114 — The Rise of the Department Store, 116 — Competition, 117 — Future, 117 — Method of Treatment, 118 — Chart of Department-Store Organization, 119 — Four Major Divi- sions,119 — Departmentsof Merchandise, 120 — TheGeneral Manager, 120 — The Board of Managers, 121 CHAPTER VI. MERCHANDISING OR BUYING .... 122 The Receiving Room, 122 — The Marking Room, 123 — The Stock Room, 123 — The Division of Buying, 123 — The Buyer, 124 — The Assistant Buyer, 125 — The Merchandise Manager, 125 — The Assistant Merchandise Manager, 126 — Diagram of the Merchandise Department, 127 — The Boy in the Merchandise Department, 127 CHAPTER VII. SUPERINTENDING AND SELLING . . 129 Divisions and Positions, 129 — Employment Office, 129 — Floor Superintending, 130 — Selling and its Positions, 130 — The Educational Department, 131 — The Division of Ex- pense, 131 — The Division of Supply and Construction, 131 — The Mail-Order Department, 132 — The Delivery System, 132 — The More Important Positions and Features of Super- intending and Selling, 132 — The Store Manager, 133 — Diagram of Store Management, 133, 134 — The Store Super- intendent, 133 — The Floor Manager, 135 — Requirements CONTENTS . ix PAGE for Successful Salesmanship, 135 — Diagram of Salesman- ship Requirements, 136 — The Boy in the Selling Depart- ment, 136 — The Basis of Pay in Selling, 137 CHAPTER VIII. THE OFFICE DEPARTMENT .... 138 Its Nature, 138 — Simple Office Divisions, 138 — Divisions in Ofi&ce Work in the Highly Organized Store : 1. The Credit and Collection Department, 138 ; 2. The Charge Account Bookkeeping, 139 ; 3. The Cashier's Office or Ac- counting Room, 139 ; 4. The C.O.D. Division, 139 ; 5. The Auditing Department, 139 ; 6. The Purchase-Records De- partment, 139 ; 7. The Payment Department, 139 ; 8. The Stock-Record Department, 140 ; 9. The Statistical Depart- ment, 140 — Diagram of the Office Department, 140 — Po- sitions in the Office Department in the Highly Organized Store, 140 — The Bookkeeper, 141 — An Actual Case of Advancement, 141 — The Boy in the Office Department, 142 CHAPTER IX. THE ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT . . 143 Its Nature, 143 — The Modern Trend, 143 — Divisions in Store Advertising, 144 — Positions, 144 — The Publicity Manager, 144 — Diagram of the Advertising Department, 145 — Important Assistant Positions, 145 — The Boy in the Advertising Department, 146 — Work Producmg Advertis- ing Men, 147 CHAPTER X. CONDITIONS OF SERVICE 148 Hours of Employment, 148 — Seasonal Increase in Trade, 148 — Seasonal Increase and Decrease in the Number of Employees, 148 — Diagram of Seasonal Changes, 149 — Vacation, 150 — Physical Conditions, 150 — Influences Making for Fatigue, 150 — Competition in Service, 151 — Where the Way Divides, 151 CHAPTER XI. SOCIAL-SERVICE WORK 153 The Nature of this Work, 153 — Three Lines of Oppor- tunity, 154 — Educational Training, 154 — The School of Salesmanship, 154 — Administrative Training: 1. Effi- ciency Bulletins, 155 ; 2. Merchandise Conferences, 156 ; 3. Efficiency Records, 156; 4. School Enrollment, 156 — Social Features : 1. A Mutual-Aid Association, 157; 2. An X BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS FAGB Insurance or Mutual-Benefit Association, 157 ; 3. A Sav- ings-Deposit System, 157 ; 4. A Medical Department, 157 ; 5. The Lecture Committee, 157 ; 6. The Library Com- mittee, 157; 7. The Suggestion Committee, 157; 8. The Entertainment Committee, 157 ; 9. The Club-House Com- mittee, 158 ; 10. The Music Committee, 158 ; 11. A Store Paper, 158 — Workers in this Division, 158 — A Sample Daily Club Report, 158-160 CHAPTER XII. THE EMPLOYEE, PAY, AND PRO- MOTION 161 Suggestions from an Employer to Young Persons who may wish to enter this Occupation, 161 — Some Qualities Required, 163 — Educational Training, 164 — Pay, 165 — . Promotion, 167 — Advice from a Store Manager, 168 — Actual Cases of Advancement, 169-171 — Quotation from a Government Investigation, 171 — Summary of Positions: Members of the Firm or Corporation, or High Officials, 172 ; The Merchandise Department, 173 ; Superintend- ing and Selling, 173; The Office Department, 175; The Advertising Department, 175 — Positions not limited to the Department Store, 176 — The Furrier, 176 — The Store Detective, 176 — Additional Activities, 176 — Heads of Factories, 177 — Statistics from the Thirteenth Census of the United States: Number and Proportion of Per- sons in the General Divisions of Occupations. Number and Per Cent of Distribution, 1910, Table 8, 178 ; Number and Proportion of Persons in the General Divisions of Occupations. Number and Per Cent of Distribution by Decades, 1880-1890, Table 9, 179 ; Distribution by General Divisions of Persons 10 Years of Age and Over Engaged in Gainful Occupations by Divisions and States, 1910. Trade and Transportation, Table 10, 180, 181 ; Number of Per- sons 10 Years of Age and Over Engaged in Specified Occu- pations. Arranged According to the Classification of 1900, for Both Sexes and for Each Sex separately, 1880-1910, Table 15, 182, 183 CONTENTS xi PAET THREE. FINANCE AS ILLUSTRATED BY BANKING PAGE CHAPTER XIII. BANKING 187 The Business : Its Nature, Divisions, and Future, 187-190 — The Board of Directors, 190 — Executive Officers, 190 — The President and Vice President, 190 — The Cashier and Assistant Cashier, 191 — Departments of Bank Work, 191 — The Paying Teller, 192 — The Receiving Teller, 192 — Discount Clerk, 192 — Collection Clerk, 193 — Correspond- ing Clerk, 193 — Mail Clerk, 193 — Exchange Clerk, 193 — The Bookkeeping Department, 193 — The Head Book- keeper, 194 — The General Bookkeeper, 194 — The Auditor, 194 — The Department of Advertising, 194 — The Advertis- ing Manager and his Assistants, 195 — Pay, Positions, and Opportunities, 195 — The Boy; Qualities and Training Required, 196 — Suggestions from a Banker to a Boy who •wishes to enter this Occupation, 196, 197 — The Annual Report of the Comptroller of the Currency, 198 — Statistics Compiled from the Reports of the United States Comp- troller of the Currency for 1900, 1905, and 1910 : A. Growth in Numbers of Banks, 1900, 1995, and 1910, 199 ; B. Growth of National Banks from 1900 to 1910, 199 ; C. Chief Items of the Aggregate Resources and Liabilities of National Banks in 1900, 1905, and 1910, 200 ; D. Chief Items of the Aggregate Resources and Liabilities of State Banks for 1910, 200 ; E. Chief Items of the Aggregate Resources and Liabilities of Loan and Trust Companies in 1910, 200 ; F. Number of Savings Banks in the United States, Number of Depositors, etc., 1900-1910, 201 — Other Forms of Busi- ness, 201 BIBLIOGRAPHY 203 BUSINESS AND TRADE JOURNALS 209 INDEX 213 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS I PART ONE EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES ON THE BUSINESS SIDE OF MANUFACTURE PAET ONE CHAPTER I BUSINESS OEGANIZATION IN MANUFACTUEE The Executive Offices Choice of Vocation like Making an Investment. Gathered around the evening lamp, members of the family often discuss the opportunities for employment in the neigh- borhood. The future of the younger members appears to their parents and themselves in the light of an invest- ment. Mills and workshops around them may offer op- portunities for the ambitious and serious. The boy still in school is aware that men a few years older than he have started from small positions in either the mechan- ical or the business departments of local factories and that they are now doing useful work in the world at good wages or salaries. On the eve of graduation from grammar school, high school, or college he naturally wants to know where he may find his right place in life. One of the things a good business man wants to know about a proposed undertaking is whether it is in a declining, a stagnant, or a developing state. Suppose, for instance, an investment is to be made in real estate. Few men care to buy land in a locality where values are steadily decreasing. Nor does an investor, of preference, 6 '6- BUSf^'ES.S^EMPLOYMENTS buy land in a dead locality, where values through a term of years have not increased or decreased to any marked extent. Good sense suggests investment in a locahty where values are increasiag with the steady progress which marks natural growth. When a young man takes up his work in the world he brings with him something of great worth. His work- ing life is limited to a longer or shorter period. His abilities and his energy are in a sense his capital. His earnings are the interest society pays him for the use of them. He too is an investor. And, like the purchaser of real estate, it behooves him in choosing his vocation to consider, among other things, whether he is direct- ing his energy and abilities into a field of declining, stagnant, or increasing opportunities. Growth of the Manufacturing Industries. It is not strange if the boy or young man who has decided upon a business career wishes to be connected with the execu- tive offices of a mill or factory. The world has many opportunities for people who can ^direct or manage a factory or department of a factory, and under these is an ever-increasing number of positions to be filled by capable, well-educated workers. The United States, as we shall see in statistical detail in a chapter to follow, becomes year by year more a manufacturing nation. The manufacturing industries are a field of increasing opportunities. Within the era of active invention, in which we are living, their growth has been great and rapid. In the early years of the nineteenth century labor-saving machinery was introduced into manufacture, and it brought about an almost universal change and BUSINESS OEGANIZATION 7 expansion. Every year now an increasing number of inventions carries us farther away from the days of making things by hand. Little shops have become fac- tories. The village tailor gives way to the retail clothier. The rural sawmill is still busy, but it has an active competitor in the vast works where Portland cement is made by the millions of barrels, to reappear in concrete houses, bridges, and factories. Fifty years ago electricity, except for its use in telegraphy, was a motive power for playthings only. To-day hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in shops that make electrical ap- pliances of one kind and another. Only twenty years prior to this writing not a single factory was regularly building and selling gasoline engines, phonographs, or piano players. Enlargement of Attendant Business. The growth of manufacturing has involved a corresponding growth of the business directly connected with manufacturing. Raw material must be secured, sometimes by shipment from the most distant markets of the world, sometimes by establishing subsidiary factories. An example of the latter case is the great mills which supply wood pulp to the paper manufacturers. The raw material must be stored and cared for, and made to flow steadily into the departments of manufacture ; while at the other end the emerging stream of finished product must be distrib- uted with equal care and economy. A factory must sell its output, and deliver it to the buyer according to the terms of the contract. There are many activities on the purely monetary side, as well. The corporation or company must be 8 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS financed. Provision must be made to pay for the mate- rials used, for the services of the workmen and the office forces, and for the costs connected with the running of the plant. Fuel, repairs, and insurance are among such costs. Collections must be made for all goods sold. Records of all business transactions must be kept; and the net profits must be maintained at a safe level. The number of commercial positions in manufactur- ing enterprises has increased so largely that we are quite justified in describing these separately, for the benefit of those who wish to know just what is before the young person with an ambition for a business career. Organization in Manufacture. The features of business connected with modern manufacture are very numerous and varied. To understand them, and to gain an intelli- gent notion of the opportunities for employment which they open, it is necessary to know something of the way in which manufacture is organized at the present day. A small factory may have a very simple organization. The proprietor or owner, with a few assistants in the office and on the road as salesmen, himseK acting as superintendent or employing a general superintendent, may control all the business features of the establish- ment. There are many such establishments throughout the land; often they are in the hands of some skilled worker who has made a market for a specialty of his own. A good instance from the iron trade is one of a shop where wrought and bent iron of exquisite finish is made for architectural uses, ornamental gates and fences, exceptionally fine hardware, and fire-flue acces- sories. This is the plant of a craftsman manufacturer. BUSINESS OEGANIZATION 9 Another shop is devoted to the making of a specially clarified steel for fine instruments. The process is more or less secret, and the business can have only a very simple organization. Thousands of little manufactories of this simple type might be cited. Yet modern industry as a whole runs more and more to big enterprises, in which hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars have been invested, and which employ small armies of clerks and bookkeepers and other salaried people. Responsibility for the management of the large man- ufacturing plants to which we are accustomed has to be divided among many men. A typical modern factory, therefore, is usually highly organized; that is, it is divided into a great many departments and subdepart- ments, precisely as our bodies are made up of many organs and tissues of quite different sorts and functions, yet all working together to one end. It requires patient study to find out how the human body is organized, and how the different organs in it do their work. It requires similar study to find out how an industry is organized and what function each of the many departments in it has. If you are trying to make a choice of a vocation such study is worth while. Unless you understand how a factory is organized, you cannot hope to know what opportunities lie before you when you seek employment on the business side of it. Dissecting an Industry : the Use of Charts. The easiest way to gain an understanding of something complicated is to take it apart. That is the way botanists find out about the structure and the working of a plant. 10 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS In just the same way, in order to understand the structure of an industrial organism, a shop or factory, you must take it apart. You must dissect it. And to dissect a thing hke an industry you may begin by making what is called a chart of it. Such a chart is printed on the opposite page. It is a typical organization for manufacture, and might repre- sent any large mdustry, or even a machme shop, a structural steel works, or an automobile factory. For the sake of being definite, let us suppose that it repre- sents the shoe industry. The Shoe Industry. There are several reasons for selecting the shoe industry as an example. In the first place, shoemaking is intensely specialized ; that is, most factories confine their output to one particular shoe or to a few styles and kinds only, building up a trade along those particular lines. Tastes and customs, styles and seasons, in this country and abroad, not only make this specializing possible, but make it the natural course to follow in an industry reaching all quarters of the globe. So we shall be studying an industry that in one sense is very simple, — in the sense that it does not produce and distribute a complex line of products. In the second place, shoe manufacture may be under- taken with large or small capital. A man who has slight means may establish a repair shop, may deal in shoe findings and supplies, or may make a special shoe in small quantity by renting a building or part of a building and using rented shoe machinery. A man of large means, a company of men, or a corporation may engage in shoe manufacture on a scale that employs 5, a* •p ^ ft, ft5 Fit lilt .5 -^ ^ .S < :K -^ <« -^ O vj c<2 ^ S g § I -^ .£ •? -S, ~ CC O 02 Ph o o Ph KB cc O BUSINESS OEGANIZATION 23 staff system of organization, with its group of special- ists and experts working side by side, but each viewing the whole establishment from a slightly different angle, the management of a concern is likely to be the most far-reaching and effective. Requirements for Executive Officers. The courtesy with which the head of a great business receives you, if there is a legitimate reason for your seeing him, the close attention with which he listens, the promptness with which he makes a decision, and the unmistakable man- ner he assumes when he understands that the interview is properly at an end, are very impressive to the observ- ant youth who encounters them for the first time. As he realizes the system with which the big business man arranges his working day and the intense application he gives to each problem as it comes up, he soon sees that there is much more in being an executive than just drawing a salary and holding down an office chair. Even more impressive is it to spend a day or days in the office of the managing head of a large enterprise and to note the energy, with which he deals with a consider- able correspondence, each letter of which must be dic- tated with close regard to the fact that a wrongly chosen word may cost the firm thousands of dollars ; the firmness with which he deals with complaints and charges of inferior work ; the diplomacy with which he gets rid of visitors who are inclined to waste his time ; and the alertness with which he grasps the suggestions and recommendations contained in special reports sub- mitted by his lieutenants. The executive officers of a company should, therefore, 24 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS have a thorough knowledge of the busmess side of the industry. They usually have had years of experience in minor office positions. It is always best, and some- times necessary, that they should have considerable knowledge of manufacture also. In earlier times, especially before the establishment of courses in business administration in the schools and colleges, young men who expected to become busi- ness managers often spent several years in learning the details of a particular manufacture. This course is frequently pursued still. It tends to make the business manager practical and likely to conduct the business of a factory along the lines best adapted to its partic- ular product. At the present time many graduates of the higher institutions are entering the business depart- ments of manufacturing concerns, some of them serving also in the factory apprenticeship. Business officers must have high executive capacity. Except in the case of the treasurer and auditor, who should be financial experts, they must keep informed of general trade conditions and be able to foresee prob- able changes and developments in a particular field. Salaries of Officers. The salaries of the chief officers in a firm or corporation range from a minimum of |20 or $25 a week, in a small factory, to |40 or |50 a week, or $2500 a year, in a factory of average size and out- put. They may rise to $5000 or many thousands in a large establishment. The yearly earnings of assistant officers and of the auditor are somewhat less than those of the higher positions. Persons working on a yearly salary, as do most of the important officers, have this BUSINESS ORGANIZATION 25 advantage. They do not suffer from the fluctuations and idle periods of the manufacturing year as sometimes do the employees in the factory. Executive Offices. The offices occupied by these offi- cials are by their nature the executive offices of a com- pany, though they are usually closely connected with the general offices. Employment Opportunities in Executive Offices. In the executive offices are employed private secretaries, stenog- raphers, operators of typewriters, office boys, and mes- sengers. The duties of these positions are like those of similar positions in the general offices, which will be presented in the following chapter. Employment or Labor Department. The employment department, as the name indicates, has charge of hiring and transferring employees. Their discharge is usually determined by office managers or foremen under whom they may serve, though they may be reinstated in other departments by the employment manager. In a small factory a single person, with clerical help, may perform the work of this department, but in many establishments the employment department has become a highly organ- ized and distinct division, responsible only to the head of the company or to the general superintendent. In such cases it is conducted apart from the general offices, has separate waiting rooms for men and boys and for women and girls who apply for work, and a full office force. Sometimes the foremen of the various rooms hire their own help, but in a large establishment they send requisitions regularly to the employment office, usually in the morning, as operators may be needed. 26 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Employment-Department Methods. Employees are se- cured by advertising in daily or weekly papers, by plac- ing " help wanted " signs in the office windows, through persons abeady employed in the factory, and less fre- quently through retail dealers who may sell the articles made by a certain factory. Preference is generally given those who have had factory experience, even in other lines of manufacture, and to those who hve near enough to a factory to board at home or not to be delayed by street-car service in the morning. Application Forms. Applicants are interviewed and usually required to fill blanks giving particulars of home, education, and former employment. The follow- ing are fair examples of the blank form used in many factories : SEC. FILE NO APPLICATION FOR POSITION cARD NO._ (Name of Company) NAME CITY STREET '. STATE NOW EMPLOYED AT I TRADE I TIME AT TRADE AGE WHERE EMPLOYED LAST I WHY RELEASED I HOW LONG THERE MARRIED EDUCATION WHERE REFERENCES SINGLE I I RELATIVES IN FACTORIES NATIONALITY BUSINESS ORGANIZATION 27 Application Blank Date of Employment Engaged for Dept. I hereby agree that should I he employed by my engage- ment may be terminated without notice at any time during my employment at the option of either the or myself. I also agree to Join the Mutual Aid Association, after the encpiration of three months, and agree to abide by the rules and regula- tions as set forth in its articles of government, and hereby authorize said company to deduct from my salary any assessments which may he levied by said Association, Name in full Address City or town _ Give name and grade, also address of last school attended Name of last teacher When did you leave school ? Have you ever been employed ? Have you any defects in sight, hearing, speech, or limb ? Do you smoke cigarettes ? Age Date of birth Month Year Are both parents living ? If not, which one ? Do you live with parents ? Do you live with relatives ? Do you board out ? Is anyone dependent on you for support ? If so, who ? How much do you have to contribute to their support ? Are you in good health ? . What is your father's business ? With whom is he employed ? Were you ever in our employ ? When ? Where What salary did you receive in your last position ? Weight Height Complexion 28 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Give the name and address of every employer you have worked for. Commence with the last and give all back in rotation to the first. Name^ Date Employed Address, MONTH YEAR WJiat kind of business ? Date of Leaving Reason for leaving, MONTH YEAR Name, Date Employed Address, MONTH YEAR WJiat kind of badness ? Date of Leaving Reason for leaving. MONTH YEAR Name, Date Employed Address, MONTH YEAR What kind of business ? Date of Leaving Reason for leaving, MONTH YEAR Name, ■ Date Employed Address, MONTH YEAR What kind of business 1 Date of Leaving Reason for leaving, Name, Date Employed Address, MONTH YEAR What kind of business 1 Date of Leaving Reason for leaving. Have you had any employers other than those given above ? If so, give particulars. Below, give us the names and addresses of three people who have known you more than one year, and who ARE NOT former employ- ers, relatives, or persons with whom you have boarded. Name, — Address, Name, _ Address, Name, _ Address, (Reverse) BUSINESS ORGANIZATION 29 Employee's Record Cards. By the use of some filing system this department keeps, also, a record of the en- gagement, kind of work done, efficiency, and discharge of each employee, as indicated by the following forms: DEPT... OARn Nn EMPLOYEE'S RECORD CARD i\i/^ME Applicant's No. Address NATIONALITY U. S. CITIZEN AGE -l Trade Rate Pfr 1 1 CHANGE OF WAGES DATE RATE DATE QUIT CAUSE DATE DISCHARGED CAUSE TRNSF'D TO DEPT DATE Where Last Employed Address Name of Person in Charge Cause of Leaving Length of Time Employed... D AT E LE FT THE ABOVE SPACE TO BE USED BY FOREMAN IN MAKING RECORD OF EMPLOYEE'S SERVICE AT TIME OF LEAVING (Eeverse) 30 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS TRANSFER BLANK Old check No Date transferred. Name Address, Old rate wages Transferred from Dept._ Kind of work Foreman must sign here_ New check Xo._ Transferred to Dept. Kind of work New rate of wages Foreman must sign here. Approved by TYPICAL REGULATIONS FOR EMPLOYEES To prevent, so far as possible, the happening of misunder- standings between employer and employees in the business of the Company, and to arrange for a fair settle- ment of questions that may from time to time arise, it is mutually agreed between the Company and each of its employees as follows : 1. It is the right of every employee to bring his grievances to his employer at the proper time and in a proper manner, and to fully state his reasons for them. The fact that he does so shall not be in any manner prejudicial to him. 2. Any grievance affecting three or more employees of the Company, doing the same kind of work, and BUSINESS ORGANIZATION 31 not satisfactorily adjusted with the head foreman of the depart- ment in which they work, shall, upon request of any three of the employees affected, be brought before the superintendent. 3. In case they are not able to settle the matter after an honest endeavor to do so, it shall be referred to the manager or officer of the Company. 4. In case the Company or its employees are unable thus to affect an amicable settlement, both parties to the difference shall sign an application to the State Board of Arbitration and Con- ciliation to make a decision, and this decision shall be accepted as final and binding on both parties to this agreement. 5. When an agreement is about to be presented or pending settlement of any grievance, we and each of us agree that there will be no strike or lockout, and the employees will continue to fill their positions as if said grievance did not exist. 6. Should three or more employees cease work with the evi- dent intention of enforcing any demand, then said employees shall not be considered employees of the Company. 7. Subject to the provisions of Section 5, the Company re- serves the right to hire and discharge any one at any time. 8. Should the employer fail to keep his part of the agreement, then the employee shall be entitled to and shall receive payment of double the amount of wages due him at the time the agree- ment is broken. 9. On the other hand, should the employee fail to keep his part of the agreement, then the employer shall have the right to retain the full amount of wages due the employee at the time the agreement is broken. COMPANY , President Signed Date 32 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS RULES FOR BOYS Superintendents will mark in ink opposite the rule violated 1. Keep your Record Card clean and whole, and where you can produce it whenever called for. Bring it with you to inspection. Commit these Rules to memory. 2. Stick to your post. Do not leave unless sent on business or with permission of your Supt. 3. Be watchful and quick to answer calls. Don't let people call twice. 4. Walk briskly, but do not run. Never slide on the stair railings or floor. 5. In going from your post go promptly and come back promptly. 6. Be honest and truthful. Take nothing, large or small, which is not strictly your own. Don't lie, what- ever happens. 7. Be quiet. Don't call loudly for people unless really necessary. Never shout or whistle about the offices 8. Be businesslike. Leave all play outdoors. Don't slouch down or lounge about in lazy fashion. Read- ing and eating in the business parts of the building are forbidden. 9. Be polite. Say " Excuse me," if you accidentally brush against anyone or have to disturb anyone in passing. 10. Never use profane or foul language. 11. Be clean and neat. A patch won't hurt you, but rags or dirt will. Come with shoes blacked. 12. Do not handle the stock except as you must in your work. 13. Do not mark or deface in any way the counters, walls, or any part of the store or fixtures. 14. Irregular attendance will greatly decrease the value of your services. Always come to work, and come promptly, unless you have permission to be absent, or are kept by a really serious cause ; then send word by messenger or mail to Mr. BUSINESS ORGANIZATIOK 38 DISCHARGED OR LEFT EMPLOY BLANK Check No Locker No. Amt. Due Name Date 19 Address Trade Dept Age Married Children Rate Wages Nationality Date employed Left employ QUALITY ATTENDANCE CLEANLINESS AND Record deportment Cause . Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday Approved by Foreman Training of Employees. In the more progressive firms, employees are trained in their duties by managers and others in office departments, by foremen in the factory, and by instructors in the industrial service of the com- pany, all of which will be described under these several divisions later in the book. A Division of the Department. In a large, highly or- ganized firm there are sometimes two employment de- partments, one dealing with the securing and transfer of office employees and the other with factory employees. As the requirements and conditions on the business side and on the manufacturing side are so different, and the 34 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS numbers of persons employed so great, with the changes in personnel constantly going on, this division is found to be an advantage and is likely to become more com- mon in the future. A Central Employment Office. There may be a central employment or labor office serving several factories. In such a case applicants are selected and sent, upon requisition, to the various plants for the approval of superintendents and foremen in each. On the other hand, plants under a single ownership but situated in widely separated communities usually have separate labor departments, each drawing employees mainly from its immediate neighborhood. The smaller the community the greater is found to be the solidarity of its workers in most lines of industry. Great manu- facturing corporations, therefore, are constantly opening factories in small towns where comparatively permanent bodies of employees may be obtained, even with the attendant dangers of decentralization and the added costs of management and freight on raw materials. Positions in Employment Department. The positions in a well-organized employment department in a modern factory are the employment manager, assistant employ- ment manager, employment agent for men, employment agent for women, secretary, stenographer, the recording or filing clerks for employees and for applicants kept on a waiting list, office assistant, and messenger boys. Employment Manager. The position of employment manager has a peculiar and growing importance in modern industry. It is no longer practicable in indus- tries of considerable magnitude to allow foremen and BUSINESS OEGANIZATION 35 heads of departments to hire help for their rooms or departments, as was formerly the prevailing custom, though they must still have large or decisive influence in the matter of dismissal. The increasing numbers of persons to be employed ; the fact that practically nearly all training must be secured in the office, shop, or fac- tory itself; the nature of many kinds of manufacture that demand employees having some adaptability to their processes ; the restlessness of labor and the float- ing element that seeks immediate employment ; and the more and more exacting demands for production at least cost, and for efficiency all along the line, — these and social causes make it imperative that the large establish- ment should have a man of the best ability and knowl- edge of human nature to supervise the selection, transfer, promotion, and discharge of employees. He may be called employment manager, supervisor of employment, or supervisor or director of personnel. He may hold some other high official position in a company, but he must give close attention to the problem of employment and have assistants of experience and ability in his department. The Supply of Labor. The manufacturer generally has a labor problem that needs much of his best care and thought. When a simple little factory, however, is started in a rural neighborhood there is no especial trouble about getting employees. Sons and daughters of farmers are glad enough, for the sake of a regular wage, to take whatever positions the new mill owner has to offer. Those who incline naturally to mechanical work are hired to manipulate the machines. Others who 36 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS have clerical ability may be taken in the offices of the company. While the enterprise is small, and the sur- rounding country is still filled with young people anx- ious for chances to earn a little money, the securing of workers is not a matter of great difficulty for the manufacturer. But presently we find a thriving manufacturing city where a short time before a single busy little factory was seen. Various shops are now competing for the serv- ices of such young men and women as will leave the farms of the surrounding country. Immigrants of many nationalities, speaking different languages, have come to the expanding city in search of work. Competition by workers for employment and by employers for the most efficient service is very keen. We see great numbers of persons constantly passing in and out of employment, especially in the large communities. The Turn-Over of Labor. The turn-over of labor — that is, the percentage of employees changing in an establishment each year — varies greatly in different in- dustries and localities, according to the magnitude and nature of manufacture and to factory and labor condi- tions. The change is greater on the factory side than on the business side. In a small, well-conducted factory, or in a manufacture whose processes require considerable skill and training, such as musical-instrument manufac- ture or bookbinding, the turn-over may be as low as twenty per cent. From this it runs up to one hundred per cent and sometimes even higher, in the indus- tries whose work may be unpleasant and require little or no skill or be done largely by juvenile labor. As a BUSINESS OKGANIZATION 37 conservative estimate, the average change of labor annu- ally in the manufacturing industries is probably about one fourth to one haK the total number employed. In other words, to keep one hundred employees at work in many a factory two hundred must be hired each year. While the change is greatest in the least skilled work, in " floor people," and in the messenger service, this condition as a whole imposes upon manufacture its most difficult problem at the present time. The Employment Problem. Wise management, then, calls for the most skillful treatment of the employment problem. The cost of manufacture, the quality of the finished product, and its sale are all dependent upon the quality and permanence of the labor secured. The em- ployment manager should know clearly the main fea- tures and processes of the industry for which he must select workers. He should be familiar with the labor market, locally and in places at a distance from which he may have to obtain help. He should have an intelli- gent sympathy with workers, and should maintain, as far as possible, a helpful interest in individual cases. Above all he should see to it that justice is done to all employees. He should have such judgment of person!?"^ and abilities as to place the largest number possible, at the beginning or by transfer, where their work will re- sult in the highest efficiency, vocational advancement, and personal growth and contentment. The employment manager must maintain the closest cooperation with the various offices and departments of a concern, and his work includes industrial service when that has no separate organization. 38 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS The Industrial Counselor. Industrial counseling is a new function in the business world, and rises clearly into the professions. The industrial counselor is one who advises a concern in regard to its labor problems. He deals with questions of organization ; of the per- sonnel of employees, their selection, training, and dis- cipline ; of rates and methods of pay ; of labor unions and labor laws ; of public standards and the relation of a concern to the public, especially in matters of safety, sanitation, health, and regularity of employment. He studies and makes an audit upon the human relations in industry. The industrial counselor works in close cooperation with the employment manager, and he must be in active touch with the economic, industrial, social, and political forces of the day. His work marks an important step in the increasing demand on the part of the public and of the business man to know the industrial status of a business or manufacturing concern. He should serve equally the employer, the employee, and the public. The Industrial Development Exjlftrt. The industrial development expert is one who makes a study of trade and manufacturing opportunities, both domestic and foreign, and advises capitalists, business men, or com- missions upon expansion into new fields. He must learn local conditions and be able to estimate probable business and industrial changes along particular lines. CHAPTER II THE GENERAL OFFICES The General Offices. Office divisions, executive, gen- eral, and factory, have already been indicated. The general offices are those in which are conducted the purely business features connected with manufacture. They comprise the following departments: Order, cor- respondence, bookkeeping, credit and collection, purchas- ing, receiving, advertising, mailing, and sales departments. They are here treated in the sequence in which business usually passes through them when an order is received for an article to be manufactured. The offices for employment, sales, and shipping are usually found on the first floor of a factory ; other offices on the second or third floor, convenient to one another and to factory departments, for the expediting of busi- ness and of manufacture. Some of the large companies have a separate administration building for the offices. The Office Manager. In factories employing several hundreds or thousands of people there are so many found in the business offices that supervision of these offices becomes necessary, just as in the factory itself. The term most used for the head or superintendent of the offices is office manager. This person must know thoroughly the duties of each office, their interrelations, and the special systems of doing business that are used 39 THE GENERAL OFFICES 41 in each. He must see that each office has the right num- ber of employees, that their work is satisfactory, that the methods of the office are efficient, and that business goes through on schedule time. He must make office system as exact and efficient as factory system. The office manager has usually served an apprenticeship in some or many of the offices, and may have studied in a school of business administration. He may be a director of the company. He ranks close to the executive officers, and receives a salary nearly as high as theirs. Some of the most progressive shoe companies are now using the term " efficiency manager " for the person in charge of the business offices. The Order Department. The order department takes charge of all orders for articles to be made in the fac- tory. Orders may come directly tlirough the sales department, or indirectly through the cost department, which estimates all points of expense to be met in mak- mg the article called for m each order. The credit de- partment, also, passes on credit in case of need, before orders can be acted upon. All other matters connected with the written order are handled by the order depart- ment, and every order must be approved by the manager of the department. These features are shown on the order form here reproduced. From this form are printed the tags by which articles are actually made. The Receipt and Handling of Orders. Twice a year in most factories, in the spring and fall when the salesmen are on the road, orders may accumulate far beyond fac- tory capacity. For instance, in a factory capable of turn- ing out 15,000 pairs of shoes a day, the excess orders 42 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS » ;^, U! < ^ ^ « H M « — — O (c o +» es 1^ W5 H 5 CO ss 03 w u 0) Q ^s Hw fl^ ^ w ■£ C ,_l g^ K — O ■1-= o 93 O o o % '~i o o O ►* « o S = .ir "r «> o a* 02 " ^ ^5 2 Ph ^ cc O a: 00 00 OO 00 t- t^ t- t- f- t^ t- t- t>- t> t- t- t- I- t- 3* ^' ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ S' ^ cS- S' eg" o o o o ) C-1 (M 01 C-l THE GENERAL OFFICES 43 may reach liaK a million pairs. There follow, accord- ingly, two busy seasons of manufacture, in general from four to six months each. The more highly organized the factory, the better the excess orders are distributed and the more continuous is the employment. Exact records are kept of the receipt of orders, of their totals, and of their disbursements or sending on to the factory each day, ajid an order report is issued every week. The department keeps, also, a record of shoes cut, so that it may know the exact conditions or progress of manufacture. It decides when orders shall start on their routine course through the factory and sends them on their way. Special Schedule and the Day Sheet. All orders are transferred carefully to cards which are filed in geo- graphic divisions, usually in two sections, as rush orders and regular orders. The rush orders are placed on a special time schedule, allowing to each department of the factory a given length of time for the work to be done there. Regular orders are put on the day sheet and take a general course through the factory. The day sheet is a very important feature m shoemaking and is used in nearly all factories. It includes all particulars to be followed by factory departments in making each lot of shoes. A Typical Day Sheet. The cutting-room portion of a typical day sheet is printed on page 44. You can readily see that the preparation of it involves much time and care and an accurate knowledge of the meaning of the terms and numbers appearing in its columns. 44 BUSINESS EMPLOYMEKTS REGULAR CUTTING SHEET, APRIL 3, 1913 4/3/13 Office 10.30 4/3 Lin. Mak. 12.00 4/12 B't'nholes 3.00 4/16 St'k Sort 5.30 4/4 Fox St'ch 3.00 4/ 13 Pumps ^ D. Later 9.30 4/17 Cutting 11.00 4/r Box Toes 3.(J0 4/11 Tags off at V'ping 9.30 4/17 Skiving 8.00 4/9 Tip St'ch 5.30 4/ '14 Pumps 2D. Earlier 9.30 4/15 To St'ch R'm 9.30 4/9 Top St'ch l8t R'm 3.00 4/ 15 St'ch 2d R'm 5.30 4/17 Closing 9.30 4/11 Pumps ID. Later 3.00 4 /15 Dispatch Dept. 4/23 , Dispatch Dept. Hustles 4/21 3920436 6 3927436 BN 39329 36 B 39384 36 B 39437 36 B 39497 36 BN 39471 36 SPN 207 36B 27536BN 330 36B 385 36 B 438 36 B 49836BN 4723GSPN 208 36 B 27636BN 331 36 B 3863GB 43936CTN 4993GBN 473 36 SPN 20936BN 27736BN 332 36 B 387 36 B 440 3GN 50036BN 474 36 SPN 21036 BN 27836BN 333 36B 388 36 B 441 12 B 501 36 B 475 3G SPN 21130BN 27936 334 36B 3893GB 442 36 B 502 36 B 485 36 SPN 21224BN 28036 335 36 B 3903GB 4433GB 5033GB 523 36 SPN 213 36 B 28136 336 36 B 3913GB 444 36B 504 36B 524 36 SPN 21530 28236 337 36 B 3923GB 445 36B 505 36 B 216 36 B 28336 338 36B 3933GB 446 36 B 50636 B 217 36 B 28436 339 36 B 394 36 B 447 36 B 5073GB 218 24 B 28536 340 36 B 395 26 B 448 36 B 508 36 B 219 24 B 286 22B 341 .36 B 39624 B 44936 B 509 36B 220 24B 28710BN 342 36 B 397 31 B 450 36 B 510 36 B 22136 288 5BN 343 36 B 39830BN 451 36 B 511 36 B 22236 28917BN 344 36 B 39930BN 452 36 B 512 36 B 22336 290 16B 3453GB 40036BN 453 36 B 513 36 B 224 24B 291 5B 346.3GB 401 33B 45436 B 514 36 B 236 36 B 29210 347.3GB 402 .36 B 4,5536 6 515 18 B 23836 29331 348 36 B 4033GB 456 36 B 516 18 B 23936 296 SOB 3493GB 4043GB 457 36 B 5173GB 24012 29736CTN a!iO.SGB 405 3GB 458 36 B 5183GB 24124 29824BN 353 36B 4063GB 459 36 B 5193GB 242 36 B 29936BN 354 36B 4073GB 4G03GB 520 36 B Lots 323 243 36B 30036 BN 355 36 B 408 36 B 461 36 B 521 36 B 244 36 B 30136BN 35636 B 4093GB 4623GCTN 522 36 B A TYPICAL DAY SHEET Positions in the Order Department. The usual positions in the order department are the oifice manager or head, the assistant office head, the clerks for figuring, copying, reviewing, and tabulating, the stenographers, and the messengers. The Correspondence Department. In a very small factory each office division may take charge of its own incoming and outgoing mail; but in most factories a separate correspondence department is necessary. Such a department handles all the business corre- spondence of the firm. It receives, opens, sorts, and THE GENERAL OFFICES 45 answers the mail, or distributes to the different offices letters which need the special attention of a department. It answers letters of a general nature, such as deal with orders, complaints, deliveries, or transportation claims. It sends stenographers to the various offices upon call to take dictation. Then the letters are typewritten in the correspondence department, submitted to their authors for approval or signing, and mailed from the correspondence department, or turned over to the mailing department. Some firms allow the firm name only to be signed to letters. All letters and replies are kept on file, ready for department call at any time. Positions in the Correspondence Department. The posi- tions in the correspondence department are the head of the department, the assistant head, the clerks for opening, distributing, and filing letters, the stenog- raphers, the operators of typewriters, and the transla- tors of foreign languages, such as Italian, German, French, and Spanish. A large manufacturing concern may be in touch with all parts of the world. The Stenographic Department. In some cases there is a separate stenographic department, from which sten- ographers go out to the various offices for dictation. In large establishments, however, the introduction of the dictograph is likely to decrease the demand for stenog- raphers but not that for operators of the typewriter. The Bookkeeping Department. The bookkeeping depart- ment has charge of the records of the business operations of the entire industry. It sends bills* for all shipments to customers, and places these invoices in their ledger 46 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS accounts. It sees that payments are made for all pur- chases and correctly charged to department accounts. The bookkeeping department sees that all accounts are cor- rectly kept, draws up a balance sheet and a profit and loss statement every month or oftener, and shows labor costs and department expenses at regular periods. Positions in the Bookkeeping Department. The posi- tions in this department are the auditor, the cashier, the head bookkeeper, the bookkeepers, the invoice or billing clerks, the checking clerks, the general clerks, the stenographer, and the messenger. A Typical Balance Sheet. On pages 48 and 49 is given a balance sheet showing the great variety of transactions entering into modern manufacture. The Credit and Collection Department. This department makes a study of the financial standing of customers, de- cides what business shall be accepted by the factory, and has charge of collecting all accounts. It keeps a careful record of all orders received for goods to be made by the factory, whether these orders are accepted or rejected. While this department is the farthest removed of all the business departments from actual factory operations, yet it determines in a very large measure the prosperity of the industry. It must study the reports of financial agencies and the general condition of the business world. Action by this department precedes the filling of orders by the factory and follows the delivery of goods to insure pa3rment for them. Positions in the Credit and Collection Department. The positions in this d*epartment are the manager of credit and collection, usually called simply the credit manager. THE GENERAL OFFICES 47 the assistant credit manager, the general clerks, the credit filing clerks, the stenographers, and the messengers. • The Credit Manager. The credit manager holds a posi- tion of very great and peculiar responsibility. He is re- sponsible for enforcing the policies of the company in accepting business and in collecting accounts. Often he must himself determine these policies. He is responsible for the accuracy and right interpretation of all informa- tion about customers, both those already on the lists and those seeking to buy goods for the first time. He should know all customers, personally if possible. He must possess the rarest tact, in order to hold cus- tomers as friends of the firm, not allowing them to turn to competing firms or, in case of being denied credit, to do anything to the injury of the company with other customers or with the general public. The importance of the credit manager's work ranks with that of the head sales manager. The latter deter- mines what business shall be sought; the former, what business shall be accepted and how payment shall be handled. Each is responsible for the right standing of the company with the distributing retail agent or dealer, and upon a right relation between the manufacturer and the dealer depend both the volume of business and the success of manufacture. The credit manager, or " credit man," as he is often called, may be a member of the corporation. He must be a person of good judgment and thorough knowledge of financial conditions in the world of trade, and of keen business insight. His services are indispensable and com- mand a salary among the highest paid by a company. 48 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS BALANCE SHEET ASSETS Increase Decrease FIXED ASSETS 1 Real estate and fixed plant 2 Machinery, tools, horses, and wagons 3 Patents and trade marks 4 INVENTORY ASSETS 5 Bottom stock 6 Heel stock 7 Supplies and findings stock 8 Trimmings stock 9 Upper stock 10 Stock in process 11 Distributing-dept. stock 12 Shipping-room stock (goods sold) 13 Chicago stock 14 St. Louis stock 15 Samples and sample trunks 16 Job-dept. stock 17 Retail-depart, stock 18 Advertising stock 19 Dies, lasts, and patterns 20 Hollow fillers 21 CURRENT ASSETS 22 Cash 23 Accounts receivable 24 Notes receivable 25 Personal balances 26 INVESTMENTS 27 Shoe Co. 28 Retail stores 29 SUNDRY ASSETS 30 Insurance paid in advance 31 Interest paid in advance 32 Sundry assets Total assets LIABILITIES 34 Accounts payable 35 Notes payable 36 Personal balances 37 Relief fund 38 Wages accrued 89 Royalties accrued 40 Taxes accrued Total current liabilities RESERVES 42 For discount to be taken by customers 43 For bonuses for salesmen 44 For inventories 45 For bad debts 46 For depreciation 47 For investments 48 For contingencies 49 50 Capital stock 51 Redemption reserve 52 Surplus 53 Remarks : THE GENEEAL OFFICES 49 GAINS AND LOSSES For Months ending . Total since Stock Taking Comparison of Extensks MANUFACTURING EXPENSES Cutting loBS Cripples, labor, and material Depreciation of equipment Expense, labor, and salaries Freixht aud express General expenses Insurance Job-dept. loss Light, heat, and power Maintenance and repairs Office supplies Recreation dept. and restaurant Taxes Teaming Telegraph and telephone Trial shoes DEDUCTIONS FROM EXPENSE Cutting gain Sorting gain Factory retail-store gain Sales of scrap needles, etc. NET MFG. EXPENSE Allowance on output for expense Excess mfg. expense SELLING EXPENSES 26 Advertising 27 Sales dept. 28 Distrib.-dept. cleanups loss 29 Distrib.-dept. expenses, over % of sales 30 Chicago expense " " " " 31 St. Louis expense " " " " 32 Retail-store operations 33 34 Net selling expenses 35 Allowance on output for selling 36 Excess selling expenses MISCELLANEOUS EXPENSES 37 Allowances to customers 38 " for bad debts 39 Cost of collections 40 Interest 41 Legal expenses 42 43 44 Discount received 45 46 Total excess expense PROFIT AND LOSS Percentage on factory output or shipments Less expense in excess of allowance 47 48 49 50 Discounts not taken by customers 51 52 53 54 55 Previous surplus Less dividends paid Gain Balance surplus SHIPMENTS 57 Net total for month 58 Net total since stock taking 59 Net total for same period last year 60 Mfg. and misc. expenses are... % on output since stock taking % for current month alone 61 Selling and adv. expenses are... % on output since stock taking. ...% for current month alone 50 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS A STATEMENT FROM AN EMPLOYER The credit manager has one of the most delicate positions in industry, for, on the one hand, he may, by too drastic exclusion of risks, eliminate so great a proportion of the company's business, and alienate so many customers, as to seriously cripple the work of the sales department; while, on the other hand, he may, by too great tolerance, assume risks that result in losses so great as to wipe out profits and impair capital. I have become more and more impressed with the necessity of picking credit men possessed of unusual tact and good personali- ties. I have seen in active operation the result of a credit man who was able to hold the confidence of his salesmen, and even to persuade customers that the company was reasonable in asking cash rather than extending credit. A firm can afford to pay such a man almost any salary within reason. On the other hand, a man, no matter how brilliant his intellect, who handles the mat- ter merely mechanically is worth less in credit work than in almost any other position in the manufacturing industry. The Purchasing Department. The purchasing departA ment has charge of buying the various materials and supplies used in the conduct of an industry, both on the factory side and the business side. Such purchases are made upon requisition from the supply rooms or from the departments of the factory. Buying is sometimes divided among several offices or factory departments, but in the well-organized, centrally controlled factory the purchase of materials is carried on as a single large function, and is highly specialized. In shoe factories, the goods to be bought fall into six divisions : 1. Upper leather, the many kinds of thin and medium weight leather that are used in making the upper parts of shoes. 2. Sole leather and counters, the heavy leather used in mak- ing the bottoms of shoes, aside from the heel. THE GENERAL OFFICES 51 3. Shoe findings, — the buttons, strings, buckles, and other parts that are usually manufactured in special factories, bought by the shoe factory, and added to the shoe in its last stages of making. 4. Heels, welting, and miscellaneous supplies. Heels and welt- ing are generally made in special factories, being of such impor- tance as to call for separate manufacture and purchase. Heels come in block form ready to nail to the sole. They are made from remnants of sole leather or from substitutes for leather. The miscellaneous supplies are those used in factory maintenance and repairs. 5. Machine parts, for the renewal of the various machines used in the modern shoe factory. 6. Restaurant supplies, or the equipment and foodstuffs used in the lunch rooms maintained by most factories for their employees. The purchasing department keeps a set of stock books and compares the orders given with receiving-room statements of the goods received. It turns the bills over to the bookkeeping' department when they have been approved for payment. Positions in the Purchasing Department. The positions in this department are the purchasing agent ; the assist- ant purchasing agents, usually one for each of the six divisions just enumerated ; clerks for each of these divi- sions ; the bill clerks, to examine and check all bills ; the receiving clerks ; and the stenographers. The Purchasing Agent. The purchasing agent in a modern industry has a very large responsibility. Saving money in buying raw materials for manufacture is as important as selling manufactured goods at a reasonable profit. If the purchasing agent effects a saving of one half cent in the cost of material for each article made in a factory and 20,000 of the finished product are put out 52 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS each day, as happens in many cases, the total saving each day is |100, and for a year of three hundred working days it is |30,000. The purchasing agent, tfaerefore, must be one of the ablest men connected with a concern. He must have extensive knowledge of business conditions and of prob- able changes in supply and demand, and of consequent changes in the price of the materials necessary to the industry he serves. He must know fully the sources of supply. Some- times he must even create a supply, if necessary, by causing his company to establish a subsidiary factory for its production. He must understand the nature of the materials to be purchased, the current market prices, and the prevailing rates of discount. He must often give contracts for materials months in advance of their pro- duction or delivery to the factory. The purchasing agent must see that his department, on the business side, maintains constantly an adequate supply of all materials entering into manufacture, in ac- cordance with the requirements of factory departments. The Receiving Department. To the receiving depart- ment come the supplies and materials to be used in the factory business offices. The department is usually noti- fied by the purchasing office that goods have been ordered and are to be received. All goods received are checked off and examined for number and quality. The depart- ment keeps a record of all receipts, sending a duplicate to the purchasing office. It keeps, also, a record of traffic costs, making charges back to the shippers of goods when necessary. THE GENERAL OFFICES 53 Supplies and materials are kept in supply rooms, or sometimes in a separate supply department until needed in the factory. Notice is sent to the purchasing office when it is time to reorder. Materials taking up consider- able space, such as upper leather and sole leather, are usually received, recorded, and stored in their appro- priate factory departments. The Job Room. The receiving department also takes charge of manufactured goods that have been returned by customers. If they are stock goods and not returned because of damage, they go back to the stock of the fac- tory. If, however, such goods are odd lots or are returned through some fault in their manufacture, they are fre- quently disposed of in the job room, which is maintained in connection with the receiving department. Such a room sometimes constitutes a retail store. Besides selling job lots to small dealers, it may sell regular stock goods as well as returned goods to the employees of the factory, or even to the general public. Positions in the Receiving Department. The positions in the receiving department are the superintendent, who may be supplied by the purchasing department to in- sure a close connection between the two departments; the receiver, or foreman, for goods received directly in factory departments ; the quality man, who examines goods received as to their genuine value ; the assistant receiver ; the clerks for checking and recording ; the ste- nographer; the freight handlers; the head of the job room ; and the job room clerks. The Publicity Department. The growth of advertising has been the most conspicuous development of recent 54 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS years on the business side of industry. Formerly, even in the case of large factories, one or two persons, who might also have other duties, attended to the work of publicity. Within a very few years, however, with the increase of the number of manufacturers in each line and the constant searching for wider markets, advertis- ing has become a distinct department with a separate office force. In some cases still, as in earlier times, a manufacturer may depend upon the wearing qualities and style of his goods to insure a constant or an in- creasing trade ; but, with competition, the higher cost of materials and decreasing margins of profits, the largest possible trade is sought by most manufacturers. The advertising department has charge of making the product of a factory known to the general public. It employs experts and uses the latest methods of pub- licity. Such work has become twofold: general adver- tising, which is an enlargement of the earlier work ; and local advertising for retail dealers, a form resulting from recent expansion in trade and comparatively unknown- to the earlier manufacturer. General Advertising. The first division, or general ad- vertising, places advertisements in the leading publica- tions of the country, or the daily and weekly press, the standard magazines, and the trade papers. It issues richly illustrated catalogues setting forth in detail the merits of particular factory products. Some large firms print as many as a million or a million and a half copies of a single catalogue. The department usually adopts a motto or trade mark which appears in all its advertis- ing, and in most cases is stamped or embossed upon the THE GENERAL OFFICES 5b product itself. The advertising department in many cases conducts a special campaign of publicity twice annually, in the spring and fall of the year. The printing department now found in many large factories is a result of the demand of the advertis- ing department for increased printing, and is a means of lowering the cost to .the factory of the extensive advertising of the present time. Local Advertising. The second and distinctly modern division of advertising in manufacturing industry, now followed by the more progressive firms, is that of pro- viding plans and material for publicity for retail stores, whether conducted by the firm itself or by other persons. The department thus acts as the local advertising agent of the retail dealer, preparing advertisements to be in- serted in local papers, supplying printed information to be given the customers of the store, and originating designs for signs' and plans for the display of goods. The expense of such advertising is borne by the manu- facturing company. - The Art Department. An art department is sometimes maintained in connection with advertising, to create de- signs and make illustrations for catalogues and for placards or other material to be used by the local dealer. Sometimes firms not having a large advertising depart- ment submit their ideas to regular advertising agencies which prepare the material desired for the retail dealer. Some firms also employ extra persons in the art depart- ment during the periods of the two annual advertising campaigns of the year. 56 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS The advertising department of a manufacturing com- pany must study general trade conditions, the prosperity of the country, and the amount of business likely to be done each season. It must advise the executive depart- ments of the amount of money to be used in advertising, which may amount to as much as two per cent of the estimated trade. Only on the. basis of such information can the detail for advertising be laid out, both for the general and local fields. All plans for advertising are usually submitted to executive approval before going into effect, as they control in large measure the trade of a coming season. The Advertising Manager, The advertising manager must be an authority on general merchandising con- ditions. He must be able to present merchandise effectively to that part of the public likely to buy a particular factory product. He must understand the problems of the travelmg salesmen of his firm, and something of the more important details of manufac- ture. He is responsible for the policies, methods, and success of the advertising of the company. The assistant advertising manager is usually respon- sible for the creation of special ideas and plans, and for the preparation of copy or other publicity matter. The Display Rooms. In connection with the advertis- ing department display rooms are sometimes maintained in which are shown the latest methods of general and local advertising. Positions in the Advertising Department. The posi- tions in the advertising department are the advertising manager, one or more assistant advertising managers, the THE GENEKAL OFFICES . 67 general clerks, the stenographers, the artist, the assistant artists, the foreman of the mailing division, the address- ing clerks, the foreman of the advertising stock rooms, and the bundle boys or shippers of advertising material. In the busy seasons the number of people serving in these positions may be doubled. The Mailing Department. The mailing department has charge of sending out all mail connected with the business of the company, except the bulk mail and pamphlets that may be sent out by the advertising department or other offices. The mail of a manufacturing concern may be very large, both domestic and foreign. The addresses of local retail dealers or agents of a factory, as they are usually called, may number thousands. Addressing letters to them all by hand would be out of the question, so the names are set in rubber type and printed on the enve- lopes by an addressing machine which runs at about the rate of an ordinary printing press. Many large factories send out from one to two thousand letters a day, besides a great mass of other material. The work of this department has been largely in- creased by the introduction of the parcel post. In some cases a clerk or other person is furnished by the neigh- boring post office to register mail and stamp parcel-post packages. Positions in the Mailing Department. The positions in the mailing department are the manager, the assist- ant manager, the addressing clerks, and the mailing clerks. In cases of need extra clerks are called in temporarily from other offices. 58 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS The Sales Department. This department is sometimes called the sales and agency department. With the help of the advertising department it is responsible for the sale of the product of the factory to the retail trade. It works mainly through travelmg salesmen, and increasingly, in the case of large factories, through retail stores conducted by the factory itself. In some cases a factory establishes stores in the large retail centers of the country, thus creating a chain system, or branches for the distribution of a single product. By individual conferences or by class-group work this department instructs its salesmen in information neces- sary to their duties and in the presentation of merchandise to the retail dealers. It keeps a record of all dealers in a single line in the United States and in the foreign markets which open more largely each year, and of local trade conditions in all towns of 500 population or more. It handles correspondence with salesmen on the road, giving them advance information and keeping a record of their daily movements and of the sales of individual men and of the total sales by towns. It compares sales by seasons in total and for each salesman. From information gathered by salesmen and by a study of the general field of manufacture, the sales department determines styles to be used or in demand each season. Frequently, also, the department has a person who makes a special study of styles and patterns. Often a factory deals with only one retailer in a town, on the condition that this retailer shall sell exclusively the product of the factory. THE GEI^EEAL OFFICES 59 Other Methods of Securing Business. In addition to the solicitation of business by the traveling salesmen, it is sought, also, through correspondence, advertising material, and samples of styles and lines. This last method of securing business is being used increasingly, especially in the case of small towns and scattered retail trade. Use is made of statements carefully prepared by the advertising department, and circulars especially adapted to reach the kind of trade desired. A late and effective method used by the sales department in the shoe industry is that of sending out trunks containing samples of shoes of the styles and lines of the coming season. Such trunks, sometimes called " silent sales- men," may contain samples of from 50 to 100 or more styles, and usually travel from one dealer to another. The retailer receiving these samples selects and orders from them the particular styles he desires for the coming season. This method saves the expense of a traveling salesman, and brings to a factory trade it would not reach in many cases. If the product of the factory is main- tained at the standard shown by the traveling samples, continued trade is assured. Some factories sell in this way from 50,000 to 100,000 pairs of shoes annually. Some concerns, through their sales offices, deal mostly or in part with large jobbing houses, which in turn supply the retail dealer. Such factories may have a fully equipped and active advertising department, but necessarily a small sales department and few traveling salesmen. Yet the individual sales of each man are large. Frequently, also, the buyer of the jobbing house comes to the sales office of the factory to make his purchases. 60 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS A Statistical Division. Sometimes the sales depart- ment conducts a statistical subdivision or department which gathers and supplies to the retailer information as to the popularity of certain styles already upon the market and the probable demands of a coming season. The Sample Rooms or Sample Department. Elaborate sample rooms are maintained in many factories, and in some cases in the large cities also, as local offices or branches of the sales department. Sometimes these rooms are organized as a regular department. They are always well located and well Hghted, and in them is kept a complete line of samples of all the styles and kinds of the factory product. These samples are changed twice a year, in the spring and fall, showing always the latest styles, or those of the coming season. Customers in the trade coming from all over the world here inspect the prod- ucts of the factory and give their orders. In earlier times this was the chief way in which a factory disposed of its product. Nowadays only a small proportion of the total sales is made in this way, the greater number being made by the traveling salesman. The sample rooms are also generally used as headquarters by the salesmen when they are not away from the factory. There is of course a constantly increasing mail-order business in most liQes of manufacture. Positions in the Sales Department. The positions in the sales department are the sales manager, the assist- ant sales manager, the traveling salesmen, the router of sample trunks, the correspondence clerks, the catalogue clerks, the gtenographer, and the messenger. THE GENERAL OFFICES 61 The usual positions in the sample rooms are the sample clerk, clerks, and stenographer. " The Sales Manager. The chief function of the sales manager is well stated in the following quotation : The sales manager's principal duty is to assist the salesmen in selling goods, and this assistance should largely come in doing things that the salesman on the road has not time to do, such as laying out the territory, giving a list of customers in that terri- tory and also a list of prospects, checking up a salesman on his route, not for the purpose of spying upon him, but for the pur- pose of pointing out to him, in every possible way, places and customers where there is a chance for him to sell goods, and, after the salesman has left the town, to keep the memory of the salesman's visit green in the mind of the customer by follow-up letters and advertising helps. The sales manager should keep the salesman constantly in- formed as to conditions on the salesman's territory. He should notify him of complaints, notify him of mail orders, and treat each and every customer as his own personal customer held in trust by him until the salesman calls again. ^ The Traveling Salesman. The position of traveling salesman is so important in a department which dic- tates to a large degree the policy of manufacture, that it deserves special treatment. A salesman is not likely to be produced by actual factory service. In the great majority of cases the person chosen for this field must be a young man of attractive manner, bright and clean- cut, tactful and resourceful, and of marked ability to acquire for his firm information upon trade and style conditions. Frequently he is selected from the retail store. He usually serves an apprenticeship of six months in the stock-goods department or in the sales 1 The Shoeman, February, 1914, Boston. 62 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS department, to learn styles and qualities. Then in the sales oJEfice he learns methods of selling and the conditions put upon the salesman. He becomes familiar with the correspondence between the firm and its customers. Then he goes upon the road, following, even after many years' service, a route laid out for him by the sales department. Educational or Other Requirement. There is no espe- cial education required, but most travelmg salesmen in recent years have had high-school training. Frequently now, however, college graduates are entering the work because of its promise of opportunity and financial re- turn. Knowledge of a foreign language is necessary to selling in a foreign field. In selecting salesmen the firm takes into account the place of residence or acquaintance with locality and customers. Thus a New Englander is preferred for the New England field, a Westerner for the Western trade, a Southerner for the South, or an Englishman to repre- sent an American firm seeking English trade. A Typical Quotation. The following quotation is typi- cal of the general work of the traveling shoe salesman, and shows the importance of nationahty and language in entering a foreign field : SELLS SHOES IN RUSSIA ^ In November last a young Russian business man visited Brock- ton for the purpose of obtaining a line of Brockton shoes to sell in Russia. He planned to travel for three months in Russia and Poland following the introduction of the goods, and then return to this country, thus to report personally to the manufacturers in this city concerning prospects and business conditions. He left 1 Boot and Shoe Becorder, April 8, 1914. THE GENERAL OFFICES 63 the United. States early in the year with lines of shoes and other goods. Under date of February 15, he writes the Recorder from Moscow : " For about six weeks I am covering my Russian trade selling American shoes. Business is a little slow in starting. However, we should not expect big results at once. I have learned that the Russian field is a promising one and. I hope to do well in the near future." This young man is one of many young foreigners speaking several languages, who are representing American footwear and other lines abroad. A Salesman's Advantages. The salesman who repre- sents the more interesting and easily handled lines of merchandise meets people generally of a good class and becomes acquainted with progressive methods in busi- ness. He is likely to be broad-minded, and to have per- sonal influence with his firm, whose prosperity he largely determines, and with retail dealers who are the custom- ers of his firm. In the case of one of the best known of American shoe companies the man who was the first salesman to represent the company on the road is now its president ; the president of another equally well-known company holds also the position of sales manager. A Salesman's Pay and Routine. The general age for entering upon the work of the salesman is from twenty to twenty-five years. In his preliminary training upon stock and methods he may begin at |8 or tlO a week and rise to $15 a week, before going upon the road. On the road he starts at a salary varying from |1000 to 11500 a year, with traveling expenses paid, and a bonus or commission upon his sales. Each man returns to the factory a daily record of ex- penses. He makes a daily report of calls upon dealers and 64 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS of sales made, with a statement as to where he expects to be during the next two weeks, following out the general plan given him by the sales manager or sales department. The total sales of the average traveling shoe salesman vary from |15,000 to }25,000 a year. His average salary runs from |1000 to |2500 and expenses; his average period of service is ten years. His active work in many cases falls into two seasons a year, of about sixteen weeks each, of the spring and early summer and of the fall and early winter. He usually visits about ten towns a week. In the idle period of eight or ten weeks following the busy season some salesmen go back to their factory and work upon samples and styles for the coming season ; other salesmen take this period as a vacation. In any case the salesman must be steadily on the watch for novel styles, for new methods in advertising, and for any information that may be of value to his company. There has arisen, in more recent years, a general move- ment to have traveling salesmen work altogether on a commission basis, to compel them to get business. The difficulty in this method, for the young man, at least, is indicated in the following quotation : Five per cent is the commission paid shoe salesmen, and this means paying your own traveling expenses. There are some manufacturers who want men to put up their own money to build up the manufacturer's business. Young men, mostly clerks, who have saved up some money take hold of these propositions and generally soon squander their savings. The small amount of business they work up, the manufacturer gets the bene- fit of ; the salesman is the loser. All the responsibility of the business rests practically on the salesman. If the manufacturer gives him a line of samples, he THE GENERAL OFFICES 65 goes out, sells shoes from these samples, and if the goods are not made in accordance with samples, the salesman loses his commis- sion. For every manufacturer will tell you that he pays no com- mission on returned goods. . . . A number of manufacturers have acted favorably on the mat- ter, and it would seem from present indications that the time is near when six per cent will be the minimum for traveling shoe salesmen's commissions.^ Disadvantages in a Salesman's Life. The disadvan- tages connected with the work of a traveling salesman are so great that they must be taken into consideration. He is away from home and family frequently two or three or four months at a time. He may find poor hotel accommodations in some localities. He must endure ir- regularity of meals, poor food often, and loss of sleep caused by the need of making towns on schedule time. He may be troubled by local train facilities or by driv- ing from town to town in severe weather. He may have to work nights and Sundays to keep up to schedule and to make sales. He often undergoes heavy mental strain in making sales, especially to large customers. The monotony of extended yearly trips over the same routes, with conditions that wear more and more upon a person after several years, leads in most cases to a strong desire for change of occupation. Then the problem of changing to a profitable occupation or of establishing himself in some other position may become a difficult matter. Un- less one is a member of his firm while still a salesman or holds some relation to it of especial importance, he is not likely to find a place with his firm, either in the offices or in the factory. Nor does his experience fit him 1 The Shoeman, February, 1914, Boston. 6Q BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS to go into any other line of work, unless as salesman for a concern dealing in some other kind of product. In general the traveling salesman, because of the reasons above stated, becomes unfitted for taking up a new occupation as late in life as must usually be the case. The traveling shoe salesman in seeking another line of work most frequently enters a retail shoe store as selling clerk, becomes manager of a shoe department in a store or of a branch store conducted by a factory, or opens a store for himself in some locality where he has found an opportunity durmg his traveUng experience. In some such cases the firm which he has served as salesman favors him, even to supplying a stock of goods. This method opens an additional outlet for merchandise and is a natural step in the continual change in the per- sonnel of the selling force. The Rise of the Modern Traveling Salesman ; I have made a research into every available source to ascertain the cause and conditions that created that national institution — the traveling salesman. In a musty volume of yesteryear I find a press clipping at- tributed to a New York newspaper printed in 1847, as follows : The wholesale stores employ clerks whose business it is to go to the hotels and make the acquaintance of the visiting merchants in order to induce them to buy goods of the firms which employ them. . . . And later as history is written we find that a few years pre- vious to the War of the Rebellion, " the house " frequently sent men on road trips to investigate the credit of customers and to report impressions and conditions in communities. Very often these emissaries returned with memorandums of orders to be sent, filling, so to speak, between trips to market. This was of course before the days of the mercantile agencies which, as is natural to suppose, came into existence after the traveler had hewed the trail. THE GENERAL OFFICES 67 Following the Civil War, particularly in the South, the com- mercial traveler sprang into existence, and his advent was one of the most constructive measures that led to the upbuilding and restoration of commercial conditions so prevalent and prosperous at the present time. . . . Necessity being the mother of invention, the traveler came into being. The evolution has been gradual, and is growing with the years. This means of earning a livelihood is regarded as a profession, and through organization the salesman is rapidly se- curing recognition everywhere. At the present time the science of selling has reached a very advanced stage. The salesman's calling typifies an art in the highest develop- ment, since he is in every degree an exponent of the modern idea of courageous efEort by direct personal appeal, and in the short years of his service and usefulness Tie has revolutionized business. The traveling salesman has transported the salesroom from dis- tant trade centers to the very door of his customer. ^ The Other Business Departments. In small factories there may be a consolidation of departments or offices; in a large factory there may even be other offices, in ad- dition to those already described, or subdivisions of them. There may be a legal department, which deals with all questions of law affecting a firm and its employees, and represents it in litigation. For this an attorney may be regularly employed, or hired upon occasion. There may be, also, a separate machine-purchasing department, for the buying of new machines or for the transfer of machines from one factory to another. Some large companies have a fully equipped auditing department, separate from the bookkeeping, instead of having the auditor act as head of the bookkeeping department. 1 '* Selling Shoes Away from Home and at Home," by John A. Sullivan. The Shoeman, February, 1914, Boston. 68 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS The Information Office. In connection with the gen- eral offices of most manufacturing companies there is found one devoted to serving those persons who come with inquiries of various sorts. People come to ask questions about business or manufacture, to see employ- ees, officials in departments, or members of the firm. It is highly necessary that all such persons should be treated with courtesy and careful consideration. In this office there may be one or more attendants, or information clerks, and an office boy. Requirements for Service in the General Offices. The personal and educational requirements for service in the general offices of a factory are practically the same as in most forms of mercantile business. For the higher posi- tions one must have executive ability, decision, tact, and judgment. One must be thoroughly familiar with gen- eral business conditions in a community and throughout the country or abroad. For the responsible positions it is becoming more and more advisable, and in some cases even necessary, that one shall have the education of a high school, business school, or school of business ad- ministration. Increasingly college graduates are found going into the large factories and working toward the business management of the industry. For clerical posi- tions one should have the training given by the gram- mar school or business school ; or, if his work is special, like that of the bookkeeper or stenographer, he should have particular training in these subjects. There is an increasing number of young men entering the business offices of the factory as stenographers and operators of typewriters, or doing general clerical or secretarial work. THE GENERAL OFFICES 69 Training and Promotion in the Business Offices. It is the policy of the modern manufacturing firm to employ young men and train them for the higher places in the business departments, although one company frequently draws men for important as well as for less important positions from another company. The average length of service of gii-ls and women in business departments is from three to four years. A more permanent service can be maintained, with less break in continuity and increased efficiency of the entire system, by filling the important positions with men. In some of the larger concerns, where methods of train- ing and promotion to every position are highly organized, there is some employee who is being particularly fitted to take the position above him, so that gradually promo- tion takes place all along the line, and the necessary changes in personnel do not affect the efficiency of the business departments as a whole. There are many positions from that of the messenger boy to the managers of the departments and the high officials of the firm to be filled with more or less per- manency. Graduates of high schools and colleges in in- creasing numbers are entering the messenger service for special experience and training that wiir give them pro- motion until they find themselves in the higher places. Such is the policy of most large firms in training their own executives. Sometimes the messenger boys or young men are sent out for observation in factories and as gen- eral helpers to the superintendents of factories or depart- ments, until, if they have ability and application and the qualities necessary for handling or dealing with numbers TO BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS of employees, they become assistant superintendents in the factory itself. Young men who seem to give promise are usually chosen for this particular training, which is sometimes called a " factory apprentice course." They follow this course for three or four years before reaching the assist- ant's position, becoming familiar with the practical end of manufacture and with the feelings of employees. Men with such experience become very valuable to the firm, since they understand both the business side and the manufacturing side, and their great duty is to harmonize the interests of the two for the business success of the entire establishment. Sometimes, but in less degree at the present, this plan includes the training of foremen who may thus become superintendents. CHAPTER III THE FACTOEY OFFICES A pair of shoes in the making, like a pair of shoes in the wearing, has a long road to travel. But. there is this difference : for shoes in the making the road is marked out in advance. The exact course of their journey can be predicted. We have already followed part of it, as we analyzed the work of the executive and the general offices. Sup- pose now that those two divisions of our typical estab- lishment have done their share of the work. The board of directors, through the president or general manager and his staff, have provided a plant, equipment, and working capital. Advertising department and sales department have secured a market for the product. Order depart- ment, credit department, and cost department have made sure that that market is a profitable one. Orders have come in and been accepted for delivery at a certain date. The purchasing department has laid in a supply of all necessary materials; the employment department has secured a full force of operatives ; the efficiency depart- ment has brought everything to its highest effectiveness. All is ready for the actual making work of the factory. Factory Routine. From this point on manufacture be- comes more or less a matter of routine work. The more completely and effectively an establishment is organized, 71 V2 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS the more literally is this statement true. In an ideal fac- tory the processes from this point on would be automatic. This routine is the essential point of difference between old-time handicrafts and modern manufacturing. A crafts- man, a cobbler, for example, attacks a series of personal problems. At each stage of his work he must decide what to do and how to do it. The great achievement of modern manufacture consists in changmg such a series of problems* to be solved into a series of standardized processes to be gone through. This change from per- sonal to routine activity has been brought about by or- ganization, and its effects are very apparent. A good cobbler makes perhaps one pair of shoes a day. In a thoroughly modern factory four or five pairs of finished shoes are turned out daily for every pair of hands em- ployed in the work. Yet no single operator works any harder to turn out many pairs than a cobbler does to turn out one pair. Organization has multiplied individ- ual productive capacity, that is all. And we all reap the benefit of the decreased labor cost. The Factory Offices. The routine operations of manu- facture fall into two divisions, industrial and business. They go on simultaneously, in the factory and in the factory offices. In the factory, — for example, in cut- ting room, lasting room, stitching room, finishing room, packing room, and shipping room, — the raw materials, leather, cloth, thread, nails, buttons, blacking, are brought together a^d united in the finished shoes, boxed and cased ready to go out to the dealers. In the factory oflfices all these itianufacturing processes are planned for,* kept track of, and recorded. Cost Depart- ment Head Assistants Clerks \ Pay Roll Department Paymaster and Office Force Checking Department Manager and Office Force Schedule Department Foreman Clerks Stenographer \i fa o s e < a i o o Supply Department Foreman Stockman Clerks Messengers ^^ Efficiency Department Manager and Office Force Dispatch Department Manager and Office Force / / / Tag Depart- ment Manager and Office Force Advance Information Department Manager and Office Force 73 74 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS The factory offices, therefore, deal with all the routine business details connected with manufacture. Such de- tails are necessarily very numerous, and thorough organi- zation is necessary to keep them properly separated, yet combined. The chart on page 73 shows the names of the different factory offices, and gives a clear idea of the way they are related to each other and to the whole business. Where an industry is confined to a single factory, or where a large plant has a central administration build- ing, the factory offices may be associated with the gen- eral offices. In the case of separate or scattered factories conducted by a single company, some of the factory offices may be located, often in subdivisions, in the vari- ous factories. But in all cases they are in the closest touch with manufacture, and give at all times a com- plete record of the plans, conditions, and progress in actual work in the factory. The Department of Advance Information. The first division of the factory offices is the department of ad- vance information, which has the function of provid- ing, in advance of actual work in the factory, all the information necessary to planning that work. It takes off all the particulars of orders received by the firm, and analyzes them, so that they may be handled ad- vantageously. It keeps a record of materials on hand, of facilities for work, and of special features or kinds of labor which must be secured in advance of work actu- ally to be done. Orders thus copied and provided for it turns over to the tag department, and notifies the manu- facturing departments in the factory of work com- ing, so that due provision may there be made for it. THE FACTORY OFFICES 75 The mass of material collected and recorded by this department may include thousands of items each season. The work of collecting information is very closely related to that of the dispatch department, and may be combined with it. Positions in the Department of Advance Information. The positions in this department are the manager, the assistant manager, the copying clerks, the recording clerks, the stenographer, and the messenger. The Tag Department. The tag department furnishes the factory with all the' detailed instructions needed for the actual making of shoes. From the orders received by the order department, after credits have been deter- mined, or from the data copied from the orders by the department of advance information, the tag department makes out the tags which are so important in shoe mak- ing. They cover every point of specification or kind, size, and style for the making of each lot of shoes or other factory product. The tags are then reviewed or examined by reviewing clerks or by the sales depart- ment, to see whether they agree with the corresponding orders. They then go to the dispatch department, to be put through the factory in proper sequence. Most fac- tories use the tag system, necessarily covering the same or similar particulars of manufacture. The Foreman's Tag. The foreman's tag shows when a job of work is sent to a department and when it is received. It shows the number of the job and tile name of the operator doing the work in the department, and provides for a record and explanation of faults in workmanship. 76 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Positions in the Tag Department. The usual positions in this department are the manager, the assistant mana- ger, the tag clerks, the tag reviewers, the general clerks, the stenographers, and the messenger. Sent to foreman's Tag From TIME SENT TIME RECEIVED TIME SENT TIME RECEIVED O 1 1 1 1 Faults -V CASE NO. OPERATOR CHECK NO. POINTS "^ Foreman ••- - - (Reverse) The Dispatch Department. The dispatch department stands between the tag department and the factory. Its duty is to turn orders into the factory in proper se- quence, and to see that ample provision is made for put- ting them through, that they pass from one department THE FACTORY OFFICES 77 to another on schedule time, and are ready for deliv- ery on the dates specified in the orders. Its function is to facilitate manufacture, and it may inclade the gathering of advance information when there is not a separate department for that purpose. The dispatch department governs the flow of work into the factory so that its various departments or divisions are properly supplied with a uniform amount of work, the full working capacity of each being determined by the advance information received. In some large factories the dispatch department uses an elaborate tabulating system for recording the great quantity of information necessarily collected and used for expediting shoe manufacture. In enforcing regulations governing the flow of work into the factory the dispatch department employs a day- sheet section and a tracing section. The Day-Sheet Section of the Dispatch Department. The day-sheet section issues regularly day sheets or bulletins. These show accurately each and every lot of shoes for which an order goes into the factory on a given day, and also the schedule time when the last lot of each day's orders should pass a given point. The day sheet shows also the exact items of product com- posing a particular day's work. Duplicate copies of the day sheet are sent to the various departments of the factory, being kept there until each lot of shoes speci- fied upon the sheet passes through and is recorded. The day sheet is a record of actual work to be done and of its accomplishment. It is used in all shoe fac- tories as well as in many other lines of manufacture. 78 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS The Tracing Section of the Dispatch Department. The tracing section follows up and records the factory work as it passes given points each day, so that the progress of each order may be known at all times. Positions in the Dispatch Department. The positions in the dispatch department are the manager, one or more assistant managers, the chief clerk for the day-sheet section, the day-sheet clerks, the chief clerk for the tracing section, the tracing clerks, the chief clerks, and clerks for subdivisions of work relating to particular divisions of the factory. The Efficiency Department. The efficiency manager has already been spoken of in Chapter I in connec- tion with the executive offices. Among the factory offices, and closely related to the dispatch department, some large manufacturing concerns have an efficiency department. Various other names are used for this divi- sion, such as planning, labor, or production department. Sometimes these are subdivisions of the efficiency office. Whatever name it bears, the efficiency department has to do with the observation and supervision of labor in the factory, with the hiring of foremen and super- intendents in many cases, with whatever scientffic management and time-study there may be, and with the maintenance of a uniform production throughout the year as far as possible. To maintain uniform pro- duction, which is the great problem of industry at the present time, large orders are solicited far in advance of their delivery, and distributed through the year, so that the factory will be constantly in operation. The result is a lower average cost of manufacture and a THE FACTORY OFFICES 79 lower price to consumers, which increases the demand for a particular article. Constant operation is also an inducement to the most efficient employees in the various branches of the industry to seek such factories, and so there is built up a prosperous and contented body of employees. The efficiency department in a modern factory has supervision over all divisions of manufacture, to insure effective methods and results. It works under the gen- eral superintendent of the factory, or in close coopera- tion with him. Example of a Firm Conducting Efficiency Work. One large and well-known firm of New England shoe manu- facturers, which has shown phenomenal growth during the last twenty years, has a very elaborate system for insuring labor efficiency and production, and employs a large number of experts in its offices and manufactur- ing departments. For eight or nine years this company has had little idle time in its factories except the natural breaks of the holidays. A Conservative View of Efficiency Work. On the other hand many intelligent employers and business men as well as employees look with distrust upon the so-called " efficiency " movement. They claim that it has assumed undue importance ; that it has dealt with theoretical improvement rather than practical gains; and that at best the recommendations of an efficiency expert should have the weight of business advice only, with no direct authority for accomplishing changes. They would regard him, when employed at all, as a staff officer ; one of sev- eral or many upon whose service the general manager 80 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS may rely for such information and suggestion as shall enable him to maintain absolute and wise direction over business. Positions in the Efficiency Department. The positions in the efficiency department are the efficiency manager, the heads of divisions, such as labor or production, the assist- ants, the clerks, the stenographer, and the messenger. The Raw-Material Office or Department : Upper-Leather Office. Some large manufacturing establishments have a department in charge of the passing into the factory of the raw materials of manufacture. A conspicuous ex- ample is the " upper-leather office " of the shoe factory. The work of the upper-leather office or department fol- lows that of the dispatch department. It receives the tags calling for material for the lighter parts of the shoe, sepa- rates them, and stamps them with the stock numbers re- quired. The tags coming here consist of three or four parts, specifying the materials for trimmings, for tips, for the top of the shoe, and for the quarter when a shoe is cut from two kinds of stock. A cutter's card is made up for the selection of each lot of stock and later accom- panies it to the cutting room. The stock, whether leather or cloth, is selected by the scheduled number, with care- ful allowance for square feet, and made up into bunches or " jobs " for the cutters. Each card tells the kind of stock, price, weight, number of pairs of shoes to be made and case number, foot allowance or square feet of leather allowed for the job, pattern number, and estimated value of stock. The cards all come back from the cutting room to the upper-leather office for figuring loss and gain in square feet and cost of leather against each cutter, as THE FACTOEY OFFICES 81 an efficiency record for each. All results are reported to the cost department. All bills for upper leather, cloth, or trimmings are checked up here, entered into an invoice book, approved by the purchasing agent for upper leather, and sent to the bookkeeping department. The upper-leather office is in many cases made a fac- tory department or division in connection with the cut- ting room. In any case it is the meeting point between office routine and factory operation. Positions in the Upper-Leather Office. The positions in this department are as follows : the foreman, the assistant foreman, the clerks on stock cutting and cut- ters' reports, the tag clerks, the figuring clerks, and the messenger. The Supply Department. The supply department, called sometimes merely the supply room, keeps on hand all the materials that enter into a particular kind of manufac- ture. It has charge, also, of supplies of all kinds for the offices and for factory maintenance and repair, such as machine parts, electrical parts, racks, and tools for work in various rooms. Supplies come to the supply room from the receiving department, after being checked up, or directly from the dealers who furnish them. They are kept in the supply department until called for by the factory departments. Accurate records are kept of all the materials received, those on hand at any time, and those sent out upon requisition. The stock man is responsible for all goods delivered to him by the receiving room and for their care until given over to departments. 82 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Positions in the Supply Department. The positions in this department are the foreman, the stock man, or supply keeper, the clerks, and the messengers. REQUISITION ON FACTORY DEPARTMENTS NOT FOR USE ON PURCHASING DEPARTMENT Goods wanted, bv ^^ irinnr pppt TTonr Tti^ff^ 1Q r Signature of Approved by t Foreman ordering Telephone all requisitions to the Supply Room unless in SPECIAL hurry for goods QUANTITY DESCRIPTION OF ARTICLES Form Filled by A TYPICAL REQUISITION FORM The Schedule Department. The schedule department keeps a record of all changes in methods and processes of manufacture. Such changes must be approved by the head of the department, or by such an official as the quality man or the superintendent of machinery. The department notifies each room in the factory of changes approved and to be put into effect. The schedule de- partment is the machinery-efficiency department. THE FACTOEY OFFICES 83 Positions in the Schedule Department. The positions connected with the schedule department are the fore- man, the clerks, and the stenographer. The Checking Department. In the checking depart- ment the work of all piece operatives in a factory is recorded or checked up. Every operator makes out each day in the factory a regular form covering his previous day's work, and deposits it in his department. These forms are sent to the checking department where they are transcribed in books under the name and number of each operator, each one having an individual check num- ber. Thus the work or efficiency record of each em- ployee may be seen at any time. In certain parts of the factory, such as the making, finishing, and packing room, coupons are filled out in the same way. All records are kept in files in the checking department until they are turned over to the pay-roll department for the making out of the pay roll. In some factories, especially those doing a small busi- ness, the work of checking is done in the pay-roll department. Positions in the Checking Department. The positions in the checking department are as follows : the manager, the assistant manager, the copying clerks, the checking clerks, the enumerators or computing clerks, the adding- machine operators, the filing clerks, and the stenographers. The Pay-RoU Department. The pay-roll department keeps a record of the earnings of each employee, and has charge of payment at regular periods. It gives out check numbers for work records and keys of lockers to all persons entering into employment in the factory. The 84 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS lists and figures for earnings received from the checking department are entered in books and the amounts due employees are com- puted. The time cards of the day or week workers, show- ing actual wages, are also kept in this de- partment. Pay slips, giving the amount due each worker up to the time limit covered by the pay, are made out and sent to each department one or two days in advance of the payment, so that each person may know what he is to receive. The pay-roll department puts up money in envelopes, numbered for each worker, and distrib- utes them to the fore- men in departments at the time when payment is to be made, usually at the close of the working hours on Saturday. On receiving his pay en- velope the employee signs and returns his pay slip as a 1 DAY IN LOST OR OVERTIME OUT — OUT IN w A. M. P.M. T A. M. P.M. F A. M. P.M. S A. M. P.M. s A. M. P.M. M A. M. P.M. T A. M. P.M. Total time hrs. Rate Total wages for week, $. EMPLOYEE'S WEEKLY RECORD CARD THE FACTOEY OFFICES 85 receipt. Pay usually covers the week end- ing from three to five days preceding the time of payment. • Some factories use a duplicate coupon system jof payment, by which the opera- tives figure their own earnings, retaining one coupon and pass- ing the other in to the pay-roll depart- ment. The depart- ment then refigures the earnings from work records sent in by the checking department. This system enables an operative to see what he is earning daily. Positions in the Pay-roll Department. The positions are the following: the pay- roll manager, or pay- master, one or more assistants, the pay-roll clerks, the pay-slip or employment-slip clerks, the addressing clerks, the stenographers, and the messengers. No. Name Date Occupation No. Set Pairs Kinds PrtM Amount V^ r^ Q D 1 PIECEWOliKER'S CARD 86 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS The Cost Department. The cost department makes an exact estimate, in advance of manufacture, of all the styles and grades of articles to be made by the factory, so as to determine the grade of material to be used, the cost of labor on the work, and the prices at which articles should be sold to the trade. The department regularly receives reports from the various factory rooms giviug the costs of materials used, and furnishing a basis for computation. Usually the retail price is fixed by the sales department or by firm officials, in advance. of the cost estimate on particular lots, according to the general policy of the factory. The estimating of cost is most important in manufac- ture, yet the department is sometimes a small one, and may not even have a separate office. Its work is done mainly by a single individual or head, who may also be a high official in the firm. He may have one or two special assistants and clerks to aid in preparing cost estimates. The Expense Department. In some factories the term used for the cost division is expense department. There is found quite generally, however, a separate expense department, which is not concerned with the supervi- sion and control of the general costs of shoemaking, but controls simply the running expenses of the com- pany, such as office and repair expenditure. This is a small division with routine duties, and generally has an expense manager and one or more assistants. All offices and departments concerned report their general expenditure regularly to the expense office or to the supervisor or manager of expense, so that department expenditures and the total running costs of the factory THE FACTORY OFFICES 87 may be known at any time. In some cases the control of the expenses of the running of the factory offices and of manufacture is maintained by the factory manager in connection with his other duties. The expense manager approves the advance estimates of department outlays, or reviews such costs after they have been met, to see that they are within the limits set by the policy of the company. The Messenger Service. The messengers connected with the various factory offices are grouped in some factories under a definite head or supervisor with head- quarters at some convenient place in the factory, and are sometimes organized as a department. This group may also include the messenger or errand boys of the factory itself. Sometimes the messengers have fixed stations and go to each office or room at stated times, besides always going upon call. The duty of messengers is to do errands among offices and factory departments. They distribute office supplies, factory mail, and also such things as materials or machine parts when these are desired quickly in departments. They attend to messages and errands that cannot be handled by telephone. Promotions from the Messenger Service. In large fac- tories we find, under this plan of organization, a trained messenger service which sometimes fits boys for other positions in the offices or factory. The general offices in some factories train messengers rather for the mana- gerial positions, as has been indicated earlier in that connection, while the organized service of the offices closely associated with manufacture trains them mainly for routine positions. In a small factory, however, there 88 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS may be no special organization of the messenger service, and little difference in the opportunities it offers for promotion. Some factories have mechanical devices, such as endless belts on which packages may be placed and deposited at desired points, for carrier service among departments, thus lessening the work of the messenger service. Industrial Service. Many large factories have es- tablished elaborate systems of what has been called " welfare work." The term now coming into use, and indicating a more genuine effort to promote the inter- ests of the workers by providing advantageous work conditions and social outlook, is " industrial service." Such service is becoming more and more an important feature in the conduct of large business and manu- facturing concerns. In the smaller factories, however, whose employees live near by and spend only their actual working hours at the factory, until very re- cently little has been done along these lines, socially, educationally, or industrially, for the general welfare of the body of employees. The training given to the employees in office service and to machine operators or other factory workers, for their efficiency and promotion, and the maintaining of restaurants for the convenience of those living at a dis- tance, have been of the nature of industrial service, and have opened the way, in a measure, to other important features. Some of these features are hospitals, or sepa- rate quarters, with trained nurses and hospital equip- ment and physicians attendmg at regular periods, or THE FACTORY OFFICES 89 simply " emergency cabinets," with persons detailed to look after their use ; rest rooms and recreation or social rooms for girls, usually with pianos and appro- priate furnishings ; recreation and gymnasium quarters, or game rooms, for men and boys ; separate rooms for employees who bring lunches from home ; factory restaurants with divisions or separate rooms or tables for various groups of people employed by the firm ; general libraries and reading rooms ; rest rooms and classes for salesmen; men's clubs and women's clubs and classes; lecture courses, social meetings, and out- ings, and sometimes parks and playgrounds around the factory. Welfare work has been regarded in many cases as a means of diverting public attention from actual unsatis- factory conditions or practices in a manufacturing plant, or as an overhead charge that resulted in keeping down the wages of employees. To be of genuine value in the industrial world, and to merit the commendation of public opinion, industrial service should be corre- lated with improved conditions of fair dealing with employees, with a just gradation in wage rates, or with other features directly associated with democratic employment. Positions in the Industrial-Service Department. The positions in this department vary according to the degree of organization of industrial service in a factory. There may be but two or three persons connected with this work, or a large number, each with a special line of duty. The positions are substantially as follows: the weKare manager, the assistant welfare manager, 90 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS the educational director, the physical director, the fac- tory physician, the factory nurse, the medical-cabinet attendant, the attendants for rest rooms, social rooms, reading rooms, and game rooms, the club and class leaders, the librarians, the restaurant manager, assistants, waiters, and general helpers. The Requirements for Service in the Factory Offices. The educational and personal requirements for service in the higher positions in the factory offices are much the same as in the general offices, — high-school, busi- ness-school, or college education, and ability to plan and to handle groups of employees. For the minor positions one should have a grammar-school or business course, and power to work patiently and accurately upon the many details necessarily connected with modern manu- facture. Factory experience itself is of great value for one who does the associated office work, as in tag writ- ing or handling the forms that deal with the particulars of manufacture. For the more important positions in industrial service one should have experience at least on the business side of manufacture and in social or civic work, an attractive and persuasive manner, sin- cerity, a somewhat liberal education, and if possible a course in social service. CHAPTER lY THE MANUFACTUEING INDUSTRIES Statistics The Purpose of this Chapter. The foregoing chapters have presented the organization and employment oppor- tunities of the business side of industry, with shoe man- ufacture as a conspicuous example of modern conditions and methods. Your choice of business employment among the many lines of manufacture will be easier if you have accurate information about the various indus- tries. It is the purpose of the present chapter to give you such information, especially by placing before you the re- liable facts concerning the staple industries of the coun- try which have been collected in the national census, and by adding a brief explanation of their use and meaning. The Nature of Manufacture. Manufacture consists in converting raw materials into articles for use. It is car- ried on chiefly under factory organization, and to some ex- tent in the neighborhood industries and by handwork in the shop and home. The products of manufacture include wearing apparel, food stuffs, furniture, and the myriad articles that serve the economic needs of modern life. The Thirteenth Census. The latest statistical infor- mation available for the industries of this country is to be found in the Thirteenth Census for the calendar year of 1909. 91 92 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Earlier Censuses. In 1810 the Secretary of the Treas- ury made a report on the condition of manufactures in the United States and estimated that the value of prod- ucts for 1809 exceeded $120,000,000. An estimate based on the returns of the census of 1810 placed the value of the annual product at $198,613,471. The census of 1850 was the first to present fairly complete statistics for manufactures. Each census from that time to 1890 was based in part on returns for the preceding calendar year and in part on returns for other twelve- month periods, mainly ending during the census year itself. The last three censuses cover principally returns for the preceding calendar year or for twelve-month periods ending within that year. The Figures for 1909. In 1909 the continental United States had 268,491 manufacturing establishments, which gave employment during the year to an average of 7,678,578 persons, of whom 6,615,046 were wage earners. These manufacturing establishments paid $4,365,613,000 in salaries and wages, and turned out products to the value of $20,672,052,000, to produce which materials costing $12,142,791,000 were consumed. The value added by manufacture, namely, the difference between the cost of materials and the total value of products, was $8,529,261,000. The Increase from 1899 to 1909. From 189^ to 1909 the number of establishments increased 29.4 per cent; the capital employed, 105.3 per cent; the average num- ber of wage earners, 40.4 per cent ; the number of salaried employees, 117 per cent ; the value of raw materials used, 84.7 per cent; the value of products, THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES 93 81.2 per cent ; and the value added by manufacture, 76.6 per cent. The largest increase in the decade is seen to be in the number of salaried employees, increas- ing more than twice as rapidly as the number of wage earners, or people employed in the processes of industry. The salaried employees are those connected with the business side of the industry, and the great increase is due to the rapidly advancing development of organiza- tion on the business side of manufacture in these later years. It means an increasing number of persons em- ployed in business positions, increasing opportunity and responsibility, enlarged earnings, and a remarkable de- velopment in manufacture and its attendant business. Indeed, much of the growth in modern industry is directly accounted for by improved methods of con- ducting business. The clerk in the o£&ce may still earn less than many an expert workman in the factory, but, on the whole, the average employee on the business side of industry earns a larger amount than does the operative in industry itself, as the following statement indicates. Comparison of Earnings on the Business Side and on the Manufacturing Side. Aside from the profits going to the proprietors and firm members, the average earnings of the salaried employees in industry in the continental United States during the year 1909 were |1187.67, or 122.84 a week; while the average earnings of factory operatives, or wage earners, for the same period, were $518.07, or |9.96 a week. And there is, no doubt, as large a proportion of persons holding positions of special trust and importance, with correspondent earnings, in 94 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS the business offices as there is of workmen of special skill and earning power in the factory. The Probable Increase since 1909. The percentages of increase in number of establishments, persons employed, capital invested, and other features of manufacture were much larger in the five years from 1904 to 1909 than in the preceding five years. If the later rates of increase have continued from 1909 to 1914, while, no doubt, the percentages have still further increased, at the present time we should have approximately the following fig- ures for manufacture in this country : number of establishments, 340,000 ; persons engaged in manufac- ture, 9,700,000, or quite possibly 10,000,000; capital employed, ^30,000,000,000; money expended, |26,- 000,000,000 ; the value of products, $29,000,000,000 ; and the net wealth created by manufacturing opera- tions, $12,000,000,000. Tlie foregoing are very con- servative estimates. Without doubt the expansion of manufacture within the last five years is much larger than that of any preceding period of equal length. Explanation of Census Statistics. The best explana- tion of the purpose and scope of the statistical material presented by the census is to be found in the following quotation from Chapter XV of the Abstract of the Thirteenth Census: Scope of census : Factory industries. Census statistics of manu- factures are compiled primarily for the purpose of showing the absolute and relative magnitude of the different branches of industry covered and their growth or decline. Incidentally, the effort is made to present data throwing light upon character of organization, location of establishments, size of establishments, labor force, and similar subjects. When use is made of the data THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES 95 for these purposes it is imperative that due attention should be given to the limitations of the figures. Particularly is this true when the attempt is made to derive from them figures purporting to show average wages, cost of production, or profits. The census of 1909, like that of 1904, was confined to manu- facturing establishments conducted under the factory system, as distinguished from the neighborhood, hand, and building indus- tries. Where statistics for 1899 are given they have been reduced to a comparable basis by eliminating, as far as possible, the latter classes of industries. The census does not include establishments which were idle during the entire year, or had a value of prod- ucts of less than |500, or the manufacturing done in educational, eleemosynary, and penal institutions, or in governmental estab- lishments, except those of the Federal Government. Period covered. The returns cover the calendar year 1909, or the business year which corresponds most nearly to that calendar year. The statistics cover a year's operations, except for estab- lishments which began or discontinued business during the year. The establishment. As a rule, the term '* establishment " rep- resents a separated plant or mill. In some cases it represents two or more plants operated under a common ownership or for which one set of books of account is kept. If the plants constituting an establishment as thus defined were not all located within the same city or state, separate reports were secured in order that the separate totals might be included in the statistics' for each city, or state. In some in- stances separate reports were secured for different industries carried on in the same establishment. Classification by industries. The establishments were assigned to the several classes of industries according to their products of chief value. The value of products reported for a given industry may thus, on the one hand, include minor products very different from those covered by the class designation, and, on the other hand, may not include the total product covered by this designa- tion, because some part of this product may be made in estab- lishments in which it is not the product of chief value. The number of industries for which a separate presentation is made is 264, a much smaller number than in the reports for the 96 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS census of 1904, in which 339 industries were shown separately. This decrease is due to the fact that an attempt to make a separate presentation would in the case of many industries be misleading, inasmuch as a large part of the product of the class described by the industry designation is made, not by establish- ments engaged primarily in manufacturing that class of com- modities, but by establishments whose principal product is such as to necessitate their classification elsewhere. In order to avoid this diflficulty it is necessary in many cases to combine a number of closely related industries under a more general designation. This condition is constantly becoming more conspicuous in the manufacturing business of the country, and consequently the number of industries which can properly be shown separately is smaller at this census than at previous censuses. The following tables of statistics are from Chapter XV, which treats of manufactures, of the Abstract of the Thirteenth Census. While the tables are largely- self-explanatory, a brief description is added in some cases. The first table, for instance, treats only the larger industries, or forty-three leading lines of manu- facture out of the two hundred and sixty-four included in the census. Industrial Statistics and Business Opportunities. By the figures presented in the census, or by the nature and magnitude of an industry, its growth or decrease during census periods, its locality, the number of per- sons employed in it, and other facts shown, one may judge quite accurately of the opportunities that industry offers upon its business side. THE MANUFACTURTKG INDUSTRIES 97 VALUE OF PRODUCTS, BY INDUSTRIES : 1909 AND 1899 250 Meat Packing Foundry and Machine Shops Lumber Steel Rolling Mills Flour Mills Printing and Publishing Cotton Goods Clothing, Men's Boots and Shoes "Woolen Goods Tobacco Railroad Shops Bakeries Blast Furnaces Clothing, Women's Copper Smelting Liquors, Malt Leather Sugar and Molasses Butter and Cheese Paper and Pulp Automobiles Furniture Petroleum, Refining Electrical Apparatus Liquors, Distilled Knit Goods Copper, Tin, and Sheet Iron Silk Goods Lead Smelting and Refining Gas, Illuminating and Keating )mmJ^ Carriages and Wagons Canning and Preserving Brass and Bronze Oil, Cottonseed, and Cake Agricultural Implements Patent Medicines Confectionery Paint and Varnish Cars, Steam-Railroad Chemicals Marble and Stone Leather Goods Millions of Dollars 500 750 1000 1250 98 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS il > -=1 br ;h n ■H frt ho a °P a; ^ 1^ o -u> CO o «+-t TS a> -^ 2» '^ c -»2 o» rt M S .. i=5 t-i b-S W 1: ^ o H 3 g ^^ bO o II fl c8 § a n3 <» a ^ etf -^^ 03 M S o ^ :n W o -« ? ^COait:-Ot-iO xQ o H t^ COCX)OOOOTt*iOiOt^ CM .T-HCicMt^^COC^iOO t- ■^iOC005-^»— (Oil>- O co" co" TtT co" cm" 1-^ o" co" ^- ^ CM • -^^ll ¥^ . '^ . » ^ .is :t : .|i .§ . -■^l |l| •!• • B S d c a r« 2 . • ee o r-t umber of establishme ersons engaged in ma Proprietors and fir Salaried employee; Wage earners (ave rimary horse power a,r>ita,l ...... a: ^ c a alue of products . alue added by manuf of products less cost H 5z;Ph Ph c ps >> II THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES 99 ^ 5 o ■-43 O hn .rl a; Pi 1 4^ o d ^ r^ (S ^ H ti o .rH C3^ (\'> <4H O [> rn M 0) -Td ^ bo d 2 etf d (1) ? a1 0^ M ^ o 4-> n3 . bJO § GO O 05 tl-1 I log d °R 1 -*' (N O CO T-H CO 00 o o oi o oi o Tt.^cooo'<^05 o ^^ ^^ '*" O" lo" 0~ <^ O" QO" o" lO" 1:0" rH*' rHt^t^GOCOOt^OO CO Oi C»*CO CO lO Oi ■<* 00 00" cT (>r of 0" t-h" TtT ^ 0" co" 10" oT go" 1^*^ rT 0" '*" oT \o (xT co" co" o" rHr-l(?qi— lOOOQOOOOCO-^OOO Oi C^G0-<*lTtl»0(MCO'*'*(Mi-Ha5 (© o" u5~ co" lo" go" mT TtT o~ 0" co" co" co" i-Ht-C000t^rHOl005 Oi COrHrHlOOiO'^tlt- Cq • S -3 Number of establislimei Persons engaged in mai Proprietors and fin Salaried employees Wage earners (avei Primary horse power Capital Expenses Services .... Salaries . . Wages. . . Materials . . . Miscellaneous . Value of products Value added by manuf { of products less cost 100 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS H M ^ h) M Ei r? ^ Q !^ S a o < « O H ^ § * H « S « * '^l Bh ^ O Ui H ^^ W cc cc ph g fa 33 W I H -f 00 QCO Q"* Q- 55 s a^ 2-a lis ?? O 54 00 u CO o 25 •5 -22 05 « O! EC .S-2 «-('w.3 <«.S.S 5cocC!»0 tnOO ►J f^ cc aj rj S a s c S '".a O) 03 o •c§8S(^ EC -3 ^ _ 03 0! THE MANUFACTURING INDTJSTE-ieS ;, i iiaV- ACCOMPANYING STATEMENT « By far the highest percentages of increase are shown for the automobile industry, the gross value of products of which in- creased more than sevenfold during the five years 1904 to 1909, and more than fiftyfold during the decade as a whole. Other industries which show exceptionally large increases for both five-year periods in all three items are the making of men's and of women's clothing, the bakery and the butter, cheese, and condensed-milk industries, the manufacture of electrical machin- ery, apparatus, and supplies, and of copper, tin, and sheet^iron products, the distillery industry, the manufacture of hosiery and knit goods and of silk and silk goods, the illuminating-gas industry, the manufacture of brass and bronze products, and the confectionery, paint and varnish, and marble and stone work industries. It is interesting to note that the group of " all other industries," which includes the less important industries of the country, shows greater percentages of increase than all industries combined, thus indicating possibly an increased tendency toward diversification in manufacturing industries. The percentage of increase in all three of the items — number of wage earners, gross value of products, and value added by manufacture — was greater during the second five-year period (1904 to 1909) than during the first (1899 to 1904) in the slaughtering and meat-packing and foundry and machine-shop industries, the manufacture of cotton goods, the men's clothing, boot and shoe, and woolen-goods industries, the smelting and re- fining of copper, the manufacture of automobiles, silk and silk goods, brass and bronze products, agricultural implements, and paint and varnish, the steel works and rolling mills, and the chemical industry. On the other hand, the percentage of in- crease in all three items was less- during the later five-year period than during the earlier in the flour-mill and gristmill, railroad repair shop, bakery, women's clothing, paper and wood pulp, petroleum refining, furniture, illuminating gas, carriage and wagon, and leather-goods industries. i^2f BU{$I]?^ESS EMPLOYMENTS f »j «* K p ' ' ' I L i J / THE MANUFACTUEING INDUSTRIES 103 PER CENT DISTRIBUTION OF AVERAGE NUMBER OF WAGE EARNERS, BY INDUSTRIES: 1909 Per Cent 4 5 6 Lumber Foundry and Machine Shops Cotton Goods Railroad Shops Printing and Publishing Steel Rolling Mills Clothing, Men's Boots and Shoes Woolen Goods Tobacco Clothing, Women's Knit Goods Furniture Bakeries Silk Goods Meat Packing Electrical Apparatus Paper and Pulp Automobiles Copper, Tin, and Sheet Iron Carriages and Wagons Marble and Stone Leather Canning and Preserving Liquors, Malt Agricultural Implements Confectionery Cars, Steam-Railroad Brass and Bronze In Tables IV and V, which follow, the arrangement is according to the value of the products of the manu- facture, which quite nearly coincides with the number of wage earners. 104 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS TABLE IV. LIST OF THE STATES ACCORDING TO NUM- BERS OF WAGE EARNERS IN MANUFACTURE : 1909 Table 5 State Population Number OF Estab LISHMENTSl Wage Earners Average number United States . NeAV York .... Pennsylvania . . Illinois Massachusetts . . Ohio New Jersey . . . Michigan .... Wisconsin .... Indiana Missouri .... California .... Connecticut . . . Minnesota .... Kansas Maryland .... Rhode Island . . . Texas Iowa Louisiana .... Kentucky .... Washington . . . Virginia .... North Carolina . . Georgia Nebraska .... Tennessee .... Maine New Hampshire West Virgmia . . Alabama ... . Colorado .... South Carolina . . Oregon Mississippi . . . Arkansas .... Montana .... Florida "Vermont .... Utah Oklahoma .... Delaware .... Arizona District of Columbia Idaho North Dakota . . South Dakota . . Nevada New Mexico . . . Wyoming .... 91,972,266 9,113,614 7,665,111 5,638,591 3,366,416 4,767,121 2,537,167 2,810,173 2,333,860 2,700,876 3,293,335 2,377,549 1,114,756 2,075,708 1,690,949 1,295,346 542,610 3,896,542 2,224,771 1,656,388 2,289,905 1,141,990 2,061,612 2,206,287 2,609,121 1,192,214 2,184,789 742,371 430,572 1,221,119 2,138,093 799,024 1,515,400 672,765 1,797,114 1,574,449 376,053 752,619 355,956 373,351 1,657,155 202,322 204,354 331,069 325,594 577,056 583,888 81,875 327,301 145,965 268,491 44,935 27,563 18,026 11,684 15,138 8,817 9,159 9,721 7,969 8,375 7,659 4,251 5,561 3,435 4,837 1,951 4,588 5,528 2,516 4,776 3,674 5,685 4,931 4,792 2,500 4,609 3,546 1,961 2,586 3,398 2,034 1,854 2,246 2,598 2,925 677 2,159 1,958 749 2,310 726 311 518 725 752 1,020 177 313 6,615,046 1,003,981 877,543 465,764 584,559 446,934 326,223 231,499 182,583 186,984 152,993 115,296 210,792 84,767 44,215 107,921 113,538 70,230 61,635 76,165 65,400 69,120 105,676 121,473 104,588 24,336 73,840 79,955 78,658 63,893 72,148 28,067 73,016 28,750 50,384 44,982 11,655 57,473 33,788 11,785 13,143 21,238 6,441 7,707 8,220 2,789 3,602 2,257 4,143 2,867 THE MANUFACTUEING INDUSTRIES 105 TABLE V. LIST OF LEADING CITIES IN THE UNITED STATES ACCOKDING TO NUMBERS OF WAGE EARNERS IN MANUFACTURE : 1909 Table 7 City Population Number OF ESTAB LISHMENTS Wage Earners Average number New York, N.Y. . Chicago, 111. . . . Philadelphia, Pa. . St. Louis, Mo. . . Cleveland, Ohio , . Detroit, Mich. . . Pittsburgh, Pa. . . Boston, Mass. . . Buffalo, N.Y. . . Milwaukee, Wis. . Newark, N.J. . . Cincinnati, Ohio Baltimore, Md. . . Minneapolis, Minn, Kansas City, Kan. San Francisco, Cal. Jersey City, N.J. . Indianapolis, Ind. . Providence, R.I. Rochester, N.Y. Louisville, Ky. . . South Omaha, Neb. Youngstown, Ohio Lawrence, Mass. . New Orleans, La. . Worcester, Mass. . Bayonne, N.J. . . Akron, Ohio . . . Perth Amboy, N.J. Lynn, Mass. . . . Paterson, N.J. . , Los Angeles, Cal. . Bridgeport, Conn. . Fall River, Mass. ' . Peoria, 111 Toledo, Ohio . . . Omaha, Neb. . . . Dayton, Ohio . . . Lowell, Mass. . . Yonkers, N.Y. . . St. Paul, Minn. . . Kansas City, Mo. . NeAv Bedford, Mass. Denver, Col. . . . Reading, Pa. . . . New Haven, Conn. Seattle, Wash. . . Waterbury, Conn. . Syracuse, 'N.Y. . . Camden, N.J. . . 4,766,883 2,185,283 1,549,008 687.029 560,663 465,766 533,905 670,585 423,715 373,857 347,469 363,591 558,485 301,408 82,331 416,912 267,779 233,650 224,326 218,149 223,928 26,259 79,066 85,892 339,075 145,986 55,545 69,067 32,121 89,336 125,600 319,198 102,054 119,295 66,950 168,497 124,096 116,577 106,294 79,803 214,744 248,381 96,652 213,381 96,071 133,605 237,194 73,141 137,249 94,538 25,938 9,656 8,379 2,667 2,148 2,036 1,659 3,155 1,753 l,7ft4 1,858 2,184 2,502 1,102 165 1,796 745 855 1,080 1,203 903 71 115 162 848 580 97 246 80 431 702 1,325 367 288 283 760 432 513 320 158 719 902 207 766 482 590 751 169 738 365 554,002 293,977 251,884 87,371 84,728 81,011 67,474 69,637 51,412 59,502 59,955 60,192 71,444 26,962 12,294 28,244 25,454 31,815 46,381 39,108 27,023 6,306 10,498 30,542 17,186 28,221 7,519 15,831 5,866 27,368 32,004 17,327 25,775 37,139 5,981 18,878 8,023 21,549 32,575 12,711 19,339 14,643 26,566 12,058 24,145 23,547 11,331 20,170 18,148 16,527 S ^ *^ 1 2 s t^ a l^ ^ P3 S i s O H ^ =^ '^: i § 5 03 a Q o « ■*! uoi^nqu:;srp is © CO ^^ © ^ CO CO ^8 is uoi^jnqij^sip M CO 0+3 P S CO CO "* UO CO »H of r-l in in I- uoijnqu^stp 1090 jaj CO rH u a SSi 8 © i-H S8 §i uox;uqiJ^sip O4* P " IS §3 B8 S ao in 00 •^ CO uoi^tiqtJ'jsip ©t- 00 co CO •* ci t-^ © c^i in r-i ^_ rH O »! ci CO tH CO o OS O m rH Tl< © t- rH c-J in Tf in ayaA in ?i © t^ © ■* 106 00 I- rH © 8S C5 O) CI © CI ?1 THE MANUFACTUEING INDUSTKIES lOT Table YI indicates the extent to which the manufac- turing enterprises of the country are located in the larger cities as compared with the smaller cities and rural districts. TABLE VII. SUMMARY OF PERSONS ENGAGED IN MANU- FACTURE IN THE UNITED STATES: 1909 Table 9 Class Persons Engaged in Manufactures Total Male Female All classes 7,678,578 6,162,263 1,516,315 Proprietors and officials 487,173 472,914 14,259 Proprietors and firm members . Salaried officers of corporations Superintendents and managers . Clerks 273,265 80,735 133,173 576,359 6,615,046 263,673 78,937 130,304 437,056 5,252,293 9,592 1,798 2,869 139,303 1,362,753 Wage earners (average number) . . 16 years of age and over . . . Under 16 years of age .... 6,453,553 161,493 5,163,164 89,129 1,290,389 72,364 Table VII shows the distribution of persons engaged in manufacture by class, sex, and age. The average number of such persons during 1909 was 7,678,578. Of these, 6,615,046, or 86.1 per cent, were wage earners ; 487,173, or 6.3 per cent, proprietors and officials; and 576,359, or 7.5 per cent, clerks. 108 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS TABLE VIII. COMPARISON OF OCCUPATIONAL STATUS OF 1904 AND 1909 Table 11 Peusoxs Engaged in TManufaotitres 1909 1904 Per Class Number Per cent distri- bution Number Per cent distri- bution of in- crease, 1904- 1909 Total Proprietors and firm mem- bers Salaried employees . . . Wage earners (average number) 7,678,578 273,265 790,267 6,615,046 100.0 3.6 10.3 86.1 6,213,612 225,673 519,556 5,468,383 100.0 3.6 8.4 88.0 23.6 21.1 52.1 21.0 A greater percentage of increase is shown for salaried em- ployees than for the other two classes. This is due in part to the changes from individual and firm ownership to corporate organi- zation, a change which frequently involves the transfer of pro- prietors and firm members to the class of officials. At the same time there is no doubt that the number of clerks here classified with the other salaried employees has increased relatively faster than the number of wage earners. Sex and Age Distribution by Industries. The census statistics show the distribution of wage earners by sex and age in the industries of the country. By the Census of 1909, in all industries combined, 78 per cent of the average number of wage earners were male, 16 years of age or over; 19.5 per cent, female, 16 years of age or over; and 2.5 per cent, children under the age of 16. The industries employing the largest number of males over 16 years of age are those in which the work re- quires great physical strength, or a high degree of skill. THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES 109 Thus, in the smelting and refining of copper and lead, males 16 years of age and over constitute 99.9 per cent. Other such industries are the making of gas, the con- struction of steam-railroad cars and repair shops, steel works and rolling mills, and marble and stone work." The proportion of women and children is larger in industries requiring dexterity rather than strength, such as the manufacture of clothing, of hosiery and knit goods, of confectionery, patent medicines, druggists' prepara- tions, and silk goods. In these industries more than half of the wage earners are female, 16 years or over. The proportion of children as wage earners is largest in the three textile industries, — cotton goods, silk and silk goods, and hosiery and knit goods. The proportion is high also in the canning and preserving, confectionery, and woolen-goods industries. The Percentage of Persons on the Business Side of Manufacture. The average per cent of persons engaged on the business side of the manufacturing industries, as shown in Table VIII, is 13.9. It varies from 2.3 in the cotton-goods industry to 30.6 in bread manufacture, 40.3 in flour milling, and 41.5 per cent in dairying. In the well-organized industries which call for considerable busi- ness detail the average is between 15 and 20 per cent. PART TWO MODERN RETAIL TRADE AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE DEPARTMENT STORE PART TWO CHAPTER V THE DEPARTMENT STOEE Its Nature. The department store is an outgrowth of modern retailing. It is a combination of what may be regarded as a number of distinct stores in a single building, or group of buildings, under one management and usually under one ownership. While the depart- ment store is sometimes considered an enlargement of the idea expressed in the country store selling general merchandise, it has in most cases developed from the dry goods or specialty store, by separating merchandise in the large establishment into various departments, and specializing each as if it were a business by itself. The volume of business in each division permits the securing of expert management and service, and ac- counts in large degree for the success of the depart- ment store, which has become a practical necessity in the large community. It reaches out also into the world's markets, and gathers for its trade the world's products of skill and industry. Many large department stores have offices, with agents or representatives, style experts, and buyers, in Paris, London, and other cities of the Old World. Stores, also, which do not maintain 113 114 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS such offices generally send departmental buyers abroad several times a year. The modern department store is not merely an improved means of distributing merchandise that has resulted from the growth of large cities, but also an embodiment of the enlarging conception of the function of the merchant, which includes large service to the community as well as selling goods. The best type of department store has come to be not only a great warehouse for the buying and selling of all kinds of merchandise, but also, increasingly, a quasi-public insti- tution with various features of service, such as en- tertainment, education, and commercial and vocational training for the hundi-eds and even thousands for whom it provides employment. From the Public Point of View. From the public point of view the department store is usually regarded simply as a distributor of merchandise. In this respect it reflects the times in the magnitude of its operations. By reason of its large capital it is enabled to buy cheaply or to give advance orders at times favorable for production, thereby obtaining great quantities of goods at the lowest market prices. It saves, also, by direct buying and eliminating the jobber's profits. By grouping many departments under one roof it is ena- bled to reduce general operating expenses. Likewise the entire skill and experience of the merchant and his trained specialists are available to all these depart- ments, so that they receive a higher degree of train- ing and management in special lines than is usually possible in small stores. In the matter of rent, also, THE DEPARTMENT STOEE 115 considering the various departments as individual stores, which is a common method of operating large depart- ments, if each of these small stores were to have a separate building, the total rent would greatly exceed the actual rent incurred by grouping them under one roof. The large stores, moreover, by reason of their large capital, are usually able to obtain the choice loca- tions in a city, where the greatest number of people pass, thus securing an extensive volume of business. And a long lease or ownership of desirable corners or locations in a large city gives weight to the idea of the department store as a quasi-public institution, and gives its holdings almost the nature of a franchise. Out of this idea of grouping departments under one roof have resulted many business improvements of advantage to the general pubUc. Through a combination of modern merchandising and advertising, in large measure, has come a remark- able growth of department stores in the United States. Within a single generation there have been developed great establishments doing business ranging from a few millions to twenty-five or thirty million dollars annually. Harlow N. Higginbotham in The Making of a Mer- chant says: Few modern marvels surpass in interest the great department store. Certainly this is so for the man of commercial tastes and pursuits, and I cannot doubt that, in possibly a lesser degree, it is so for the great mass of the American people. Perhaps there are other developments of twentieth-century progress better adapted to stand as types of the age; but it must be granted that the department store is distinctly a latter-day institution which is clearly representative of conspicuous elements and tendencies in the life of the present hour. 116 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS The Rise of the Department Store. The general store, selling all kinds of merchandise, has long existed in this country, especially in small or rural communities. In our cities, however, until within a generation, most stores were specialty houses, selling single Imes, such as hardware, groceries, or dry goods; and generally they were found grouped in districts, forming the market district, dry-goods district, the wholesale district, and others. As American cities increased in population, it became more and more inconvenient for buyers or shop- pers to go from store to store, or from one district to another, and more profitable to the merchant to cany- many lines of goods. Here lay both the need and the opportunity for the modern department store. The city specialty store pro- vided or attracted experience, enterprise, and capital. The progressive city retailer added one line of stock after another, eliminated the jobber, and handled large quantities of goods at lower prices than his small, specializing competitor. A strong factor from the begin- ning was the principle of buying and selling for cash. An important step, also, was the introduction of " odd- cent" prices, when "even-money" prices had been uni- versal in the country. Close selling and close buying naturally went together. Free delivery of goods was greatly advanced by this new form of commercial enter- prise. Increased liberality in the exchange of goods resulted. Finally, the department store has been aggres- sive and always ready for a radical departure from old methods for the sake of profit or reputation, and the mammoth stores of the present day have resulted. THE DEPAETMENT STORE 117 Competition. Because of the large capital involved, heavy running expenses, and the scarcity of good avail- able locations in a city, and because- of the natural limit to the possible amount of business in a territory, department stores will be limited in number in any one community, and competition on a large scale corre- spondingly restricted. There will always be competition between a department of one and the corresponding department of another, especially in merchandise of the lower grades. In addition to this general trade rivalry there is, also, constant and strong competition from specialty stores, chain systems of stores, and mail-order houses. Within the great store itself, there is always an effort among departments to see which shall produce the greatest amount of profit due to enlarged volume of business. Future. The growth of cities in the last twenty-five years is one of the most significant developments of our times. The increase in city and suburban popula- tion, with modern transportation facilities, has furnished the condition which makes possible and necessary the department store. One important condition is found in the fact that the pressure of population has raised the price of land, and rental is reduced by assembling stores or shops m a single establishment. Along with the increase of urban and suburban pop- ulation will continue a growth in the volume of retail trade which will in larger and larger degree take the form of the regular department stores, specialized stores (which are department stores with selected lines of merchandise), and chain systems of stores (which, under 118 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS one firm name, ownership, and management, carry on business in various communities). It is possible, also, that the European idea of cooperative manufacture, distribu- tion, and buymg on the part of the public in the form of cooperative retail ■ stores will be adopted in some degree in this country. The idea of the public cooper- ating and owning its retail stores is spreading in the West, Northwest, and along the Canadian frontier, and is hastened in its development by the immigration of people from European countries. The modern American department store has become an established institution whose future is limited only by the growth of population and material resources, by the supply of men competent to develop with its devel- opment, and by changing conditions and business enterprise. Method of Treatment. In this study of the depart- ment store, positions of all grades in which boys and men are employed are enumerated. The major divisions are not necessarily treated in a uniform manner; each one is considered in the way in which it presents itself to the investigator, and according to its natural features or relations to the entire system. In each case an attempt is made to show the exact nature of a division or subdivision, the duties and pay of positions, and the lines of progress and relation in a department, or between departments, with such other features and information as may be necessary to present a comprehensive, accurate, and impartial study of the department store, from the standpoint of the boy or young man. THE DEPAETMENT STOKE 119 An attempt is made to show organization and store system clearly, because young men should in the main look forward to filling the higher places, on account of the constant and increasing competition of female help, especially in selling and the minor positions. Herewith is given a simple chart of a department- store organization which follows the natural lines of the business. Individual stores will have organizations which THE GENERAL MANAGER Four Coordinate Divisions I Merchandise Manager Buyers and Assistant Buyers I Store Manager Advertising Manager Domestic /\ Superin tending Floor Foreign Managers _J Selling Stock People Sales People T Artists Office Manager Heads of Divisions Floor Boys Window Dressers Sign Painters Office Clerks Bookkeepers Office Boys CHART OF DEPARTMENT-STORE ORGANIZATION differ according to their magnitude, ownership, aj^ special conditions ; but most will correspond closely to this gen- eral plan, which is followed in the succe*&ding chapters. Four Major Divisions. At the Iiead of .the^organ- ization or administration is the General Manager, wh5 has control of all the departments and activities of the business. Under his control are four coordinate, major divisions, — Merchandising, Store Managing, Ad- vertising, and Recording, — each in charge of a manager 120 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS who reports to the general manager* The division of store managing subdivides into superintending and sell- ing, so that for full treatment there are four great departments or divisions, in this order, — merchandising or buying, superintending and selling, advertising or publicity, and the recording or office department. Departments of Merchandise. Besides departments of organization there are departments of merchandise and of selling in the modem store. These are, however, sometimes called sections, as the hosiery, linen, or drug section. Even in the specialty store there may be fifty sections of merchandise, while in the large, general es- tablishment there may be several hundred. The General Manager. In these great modern business houses the smallest details and matters of the highest importance move according to a well-ordered and well- defined system. Executive responsibility is so plain that employees in every branch of the business know clearly who are in authority over them. In all such large enterprises there is usually one personality, one master mind, which directs and determines the policy of the business. This may be its individual proprietor, its president, secretary, treasurer, or other official. Next to the actual head of the concern is the person in direct command, the general manager, who may be a mem- ber of the firm or employed by it. He has a wide over- sight of all the interests of the business, yet he often gives his main attention to the merchandising division. He sets limits of expenditure for the buyers before they make their purchases for a coming season. He makes a study of conditions which may have a bearing upon the THE DEPARTMENT STORE 121 trade of various departments. He analyzes national and local financial prospects. He is quick to anticipate changes in fashion and public taste. According to the usual practice the general manager has conferences with his buyers, singly or in groups, at fortnightly or monthly periods. At such regular councils the manager presides and brings up for discussion air topics of large interest. He may thus on any day obtain a comprehensive view of the condition of the entire establishment. He goes, also, from department to department, looking after the quality and prices of goods, and in some cases all bills checked up in the receiving room are sent to his office for approval before being paid. The general manager is the chief executive of the business, and his control is felt throughout all departments. In a very large busi- ness his duties may be divided among several men. The Board of Managers. The four managers of the great departments below the general manager consti- tute a board of managers. They hold regular meetings, which are often attended by the general manager, dis- cuss all problems of the business, and vote upon methods for its conduct. In some cases the directors of the corporation take charge of the great departments and constitute the board of managers. CHAPTER VI MERCHANDISING OR BUYING Merchandising includes the buying, care, and prepa- ration of goods for sale. It covers all that precedes advertising and actual selling, and affords a very com- mon avenue to the boy for entrance into the business of the department store. Under this large, general division come five impor- tant subdivisions or departments : The Receiving Room. This is the room in which all merchandise entering the store is received and accounted for. * Positions. The positions are those of head receiver and assistant head receiver, who have charge of all merchandise coming in; the receiving clerk, who signs for all goods received and makes entries in the proper journals ; the examiner, who opens goods, inspects them, and checks them from the invoices ; the bill clerk, who makes a record of bills leaving this department; the porters and handlers of merchandise. In connection with the receiving room, or as a part of it, is the returned-goods department, which has to do with all merchandise returned by the department store to wholesale dealers. The positions here are the clerk, who keeps records and sends bills with returned goods ; the packer ; and boy, or assistant packer. 122 MERCHANDISING OE BUYING 123 The Marking Room. This is the room or division of the store in which goods are marked with cost and selKng prices. In a large store it is usually a separate room ; in the small store it is often a part of the receiv- ing room, set aside for the marking of merchandise, but having its own system and staff of employees. Positions. The positions in the marking room are head marker, assistant head marker, and the markers who put cost and selling prices, as fixed by buyers and the merchandise manager, on the articles of merchan- dise before they are brought out for sale or sent to the stock room. The Stock Room. This is the part of the store in which reserve or surplus merchandise is stored after being examined and marked for sale. In the case of stores doing an extensive business, articles taking up a large amount of space, such as furniture, are often stored in a separate building. Positions. The positions here are the stock man and his assistants, called stock boys, who have charge of all merchandise in stock, prepare it, and bring it out for sale. The Division of Buying. This is a division of stead- ily growing importance in the modern department store. In a very large business buyers are sometimes hired by the firm itself, and not by the superintendent or employment manager. There are from thirty or forty to one hundred or more buyers in stores em- ploying from one thousand to five thousand people, according to the number of merchandise departments or groupings. 124 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Positions. The positions in tliis department are the buyer, assistant buyer, heads of stock, and clerks who do the necessary routine work, such as writing letters and filling orders. Buyers have sample rooms in which they meet represeiitatives of wholesale houses, but their clerical work is usually done in the departments to which it may be related. The Buyer. It is the practice in the larger, newer, and more progressive houses to allow the buyer to manage that part of the business with which he is immediately connected as if it were his own. He buys the merchandise for his department, usually a single line only. He must have taste, judgment, and business capacity, both for buying and for selling. At the pres- ent time many buyers in department stores have come from specialty stores, such as dry goods, groceries and provisions, furniture, art goods, toys, or jewelry. An increasing number, however, advance from the ranks in the merchandising or selling departments of a store to the position of assistant buyer and then of buyer. The buyer must be a keen judge of merchandise, both as to its intrinsic value and as to its market value. He must also know kinds of goods and when, where, and how much to buy. He must be able to purchase goods that will suit the taste of the greatest number of people. In producing profit for the store the buying by one person must be set over against the selling by scores or by several hundred. This shows the buyer's responsibility and his value to the firm. He is the pivot on which rests in large measure the general success of the business. He has to see that goods are properly MERCHANDISING OR BUYING 125 priced for selling, that they are conspicuously displayed in the sales department, and that the sales clerks are instructed as to the nature of the merchandise, so that they can talk intelligently to customers. He must also secure proper window display and adequate newspaper advertising, usually himself preparing newspaper adver- tisements. The test of his efficiency is in the volume of business and the annual profits of his department. The Assistant Buyer. Each buyer has an assistant who is supposed to be capable of taking his place in his absence, besides helping in the general duties of the de- partment. Many buyers make frequent trips to Europe, and all must visit the mercantile centers of the country. Thus the assistant is left as resident buyer and man- ager. Under this assistant are " heads of stock," who have charge of particular stocks of goods. From the heads of stock, who have made a thorough study of merchandise, are generally selected the assistant buyers. They are also chosen from the ablest selling clerks who have shown a willingness and a fitness to learn mer- chandising, or to manage the minor details of a depart- ment. The assistant makes a study of the supply and condition of merchandise on hand and aids his chief in the general conduct of the department. The Merchandise Manager. The merchandise man- ager is head of the buying department and chief of the merchandising system. He may be simply a man of very high ability to direct large affairs. Usually, however, in addition he must have a very extensive knowledge of all kinds of merchandise, or at least of the most important lines. He may have been a very 126 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS capable buyer, promoted to take the direction of all buying. From his position he may become a member of the firm or corporation, and in some cases members of the firm take upon themselves the duties of mer- chandise managing, each having charge of a group of buyers. All of these conditions are found in depart- ment stores, from the man who has merely great execu- tive capacity to the, proprietor of a business, who is himself skilled in merchandising or managing. The merchandise manager is responsible for all goods bought and put in stock and for the gross receipts of the system. He must see that goods are so well selected and of such a valuable nature that their sale will result in a reasonable net profit. He must cooperate with the advertising manager in promoting sales. He looks after all merchandise coming in and on hand throughout the store. He compares the weekly reports of the stock men with that of the stock office, where bills are entered from the receiving room. He is responsible for the personnel and training of his subordinates and is often aided by one or more assistants. The Assistant Merchandise Manager. When a business has become very extensive and the merchandise depart- ment has many and large divisions, its manager may have an assistant or an organization of immediate sub- ordinates, standing between him and the buyers. Each assistant has under him a group of selling divisions, with buyers and their helpers. The assistant may study the general subject of profits, in an advisory capacity only ; he may supervise the resources of the department; he may study the problems of competition between stores MEKCHANDISING OR BUYING 127 and between the departments of his own store ; and he may deal with the general question of stocks and of plans to meet the needs of the various seasons. MERCHANDISE MANAGER Assistant Merchandise Manager Stocks of Goods Buying Organization Resources Profits Buyers Assistant Buyers Heads of Stock Stock Boys Stock Departments From a few to several hundred stock divisions ia department stores DIAGRAM OF THE MERCHANDISE DEPARTMENT The Boy in the Merchandise Department. The age limits for entering this department are practically four- teen and eighteen years. Boys are usually taken at the age of sixteen or seventeen, and one over eighteen 128 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS would be more likely to enter some other occupation, or if he were fitted, an advanced position in the store. The first position here is that of stock boy. Besides this in small stores boys sometimes perform general duties such as opening cases, unpacking merchandise, putting it in order for checking and marking, checking, marking in the receiving room, assorting bundles, pack- ing goods for delivery, shipping, handling the shipping truck, and booking. Pay at first ranges from |3 to $8 a week, according to age or the work performed. The employer is constantly on the watch for boys capable of filling advanced positions. The stock boy may pass to the selUng department, to the advertising office, or to the retail office, with the advantage of his experience in handling stock. He may become an assistant receiver or receiver in his department at pay ranging from $15 to $30 a week. He may become an assistant buyer and in time buyer or merchandise manager. The pay for assistant buyer and buyer is variable, according to the ability of the person and the magnitude of the busi- ness done by the store. The assistant may receive from $20 up to $40 or $50 a w«ek ; the buyer from $1000 or $2000 to many thousands of dollars a year. CHAPTER VII SUPEEINTENDma AND SELLING Superintending and selling are so vitally connected in the great field of the modern store that they are usually treated together, as a single department. This department includes all features of employment and superintending, store equipment, and all forms and branches of selling. Divisions and Positions The following list of divisions and positions in this double department is fairly typical: The Employment Office. The work of tliis office is vital to the success of the modern store. It calls for rare capacity in judging human nature and ability, and in putting the right person in the right place in a great system. The duties are fourfold: a constant estimat- ing of the force required throughout the store ; a care- ful study of resources for getting help ; the keeping of files and information regarding possible applicants ; and the careful selection, placing, and following up of persons taken into employment. Positions. The duties are the same in this division in all stores ; but various titles are given to the person at the head, as store manager, general superintendent, or 129 130 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS employment manager. In each case there are usually an assistant and office clerks. Floor Superintending. The two chief positions here are the floor superintendent, who has general charge of a floor or selling division, and the floor clerk, who usually acts as an assistant to the superintendent. Selling and its Positions. The positions here divide into two classes, — the sales force and the stock force. The sales force includes the sellmg clerks, often spoken of as " sales people," who are scattered throughout the store in its various merchandise departments or sections. The sales people are distinguished by departments, as salesman in the cotton-goods section or furniture de- partment ; they represent the firm to its customers, and the requirements, and importance of their work will be treated more fully after this enumeration. After merchandise comes from the stock room to its departments it must be cared for before being sold. This constitutes the work of the stock force. In caring for stock, boys gradually learn the nature and value of merchandise, and by watching sales persons they learn something of selling. In this way boys graduate into positions as selling clerks, clerical assistants to buyers, and regular assistant buyers. In all stores are found floor boys in connection with selling. Formerly the term " cash boy " was in general use, but the introduction of the tube system in hand- ling money has displaced cash boys in most stores. In heavy-goods sections the term " bundle boy " is in general use. The floor boy comes to his department first in the morning, dusts and removes covers from SUPEKIKTENBIKG AND SELLING 131 merchandise, does cleaning during the day, keeps water tanks filled, makes special deliveries of packages out- side, and is messenger among departments of the store. At night he covers merchandise. If there is no stock boy in a section, the floor boy does stock work. The floor boy may become a salesman in the section in which he is serving, but it is advisable that he should first serve in the receiving room or stock room, to be- come familiar with merchandise and prices. The Educational Department. The head of this de- partment is the educational director, who has charge of the training for efliciency of all groups of employees throughout the store. This division is more fully treated under the title of Social-Service Work, on page 153. The Division of Expense. This division supervises the general expenses of the business. Positions. The leading positions are the expense man and his assistants. The expense man is usually an as- sistant to the store manager, though he may be sub^ ordinate to the oflice manager. He should be able to deal with and analyze figures, and to pass upon and control store expenses. The Division of Supply and Construction. This division deals with the supervision and maintenance of buildings and fixtures, the making of contracts, and the buying and care of office and departmental supplies. It in- volves a knowledge of construction, of engines, motors, machinery, and of general building equipment. Positions. The positions are superintendent of con- struction, purchasing agent, head engineer and engi- neers, electricians, carpenters, painters, head elevator 132 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS man and elevator men, head porters and porters, night superintendent, watchman, and cleaners. The Mail-Order Department. This division has charge of the mail-order busmess of the store. Positions. The positions are the head of the mail- order department and assistant, and department clerks, who attend to the routine of filling orders promptly and accurately. The Delivery System. This division has to do with the delivery of goods from the shipping room to the homes of customers and is an important feature of department-store trade. Merchandise which is to be delivered at the home is sent by the selling clerk to the bundle desk, where it is wrapped ; then it is taken to the shipping room, packed if necessary, and given to the delivery wagon or express company. A large business may have a separate packing room. Positions. This division has the following positions: the head examiner and assistant head examiner, who are responsible for the condition in which merchandise is sent out; the head shipper, assistant head shipper, and shippers, who are responsible for the actual sending of goods ; collectors of bundles, who get packages to the shipping room and sort them according to delivery districts; bookers, or entry clerks, who make records of shipments ; and billing clerks, who make out C. O. D. bills. The More Important Positions and Features of Superin- tending and Selling. The leading positions and features of this great department call for further treatment, that their importance and place in the entire system may be clearly seen. The positions are distinctly executive, SUPEEINTENDING AND SELLING 133 and call for the highest business and executive abihty. Along with the leading places in merchandising, adver- tising, and the office, they present a high opportunity to the man of education, training, and capacity who wishes to advance in the business world, or to the young man already in the system who has native ability and determination to succeed. The Store Manager. The store manager in many stores is called the general superintendent. He has charge generally of the employment of help and of training for efficiency,' of the selling of goods and service to custom- ers, of the construction and maintenance of buildings, of the mail-order and delivery systems, of alterations in garments, of correspondence, and of the general ex- pense and conduct of the department. The duties of the store manager subdivide into the great, yet inti- mately associated, branches of superintending and selling. Diagram of Store Management. The following diagram shows the double line of control maintained by the store manager. The first group, coming closer to him in the actual conduct of a store, has to do with employment and all provisions concerning employees. The second group, somewhat farther removed than the first, deals with building and equipment and selling with its re- lated branches. Selling is the main division, for which all others exist. A chief or head of each division is directly responsible to the store manager. This diagram represents a complete and important organization within the great organization of the modern department store. The Store Superintendent. This position is next in order and importance to that of the general superintendent, and 134 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS both are found in the highly organized store. The store superintendent is sometimes called the superintendent [ STOEE MANAGER ] 1 Employ- ment Protec- tion Educa- tion Expense System 1 1 Buildings and Supplies Merchandise Alterations Selling Organ- ization Superintendent of Selling Deliv- ery Mark- ing Mail Orders Floor Superintendent Floor Clerks Sales People Floor Boys Selling Departments or Sections Erom a few to several hundred selling sections In department stores DIAGRAM OF STORE MANAGEMENT of selling. He has direct charge of the sales work of the store, of employing minor help, of arranging mer- chandise for sale, of keeping merchandise departments SUPERINTENDING AND SELLING 135 in proper condition, of instructing the sales force in its duties, of store discipline, of controlling the expense of the selling departments, of adjusting claims of customers, and of the work of all floor superintendents. The Floor Manager. The floor manager, or superintend- ent, is the floor executive. He is directly responsible for the duties enumerated under the store superintend- ent. He is responsible for maintaining a high standard of salesmanship and prompt and satisfactory service to customers. He has charge of exchanges, credits, and refunds for returned merchandise, and of special cour- tesies to customers. He must see that merchandise is kept in good condition and so displayed that its sell- ing properties are conspicuous. He must keep his floor division presentable and his sales force efficient from the store point of view, as well as from the customers' point of view. The floor clerk is the general assistant to the floor manager. He handles such details as making exchanges, credits, and refunds. Requirements for Successful Salesmanship. The re- quirements for the successful sales person in the depart- ment store are both native and acquired. For selling one should have the utmost tact, self-control, mental alertness, interest in human nature, and faith in self and in the business. Training given in the store, in class work, or in lectures and instruction from buyers and floor managers lays especial stress upon the following points, among the many that belong to salesmanship: First. The care of stock. A neatly kept and artisti- cally arranged stock is the first step toward prepossessing 136 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS customers in favor of merchandise. Clerks are, accord- ingly, carefully trained in these matters. Second. The approach to a customer, which should be cordial and welcoming, within the limits of refinement. Excessive cordiality is a handicap at the outset. Third. Talking of merchandise. The clerk must have an intelligent and thorough knowledge of the styles, features, and quality points of merchandise, and be able to present these honestly and effectively to the customer. Fourth. The closing of the sale. Since first and last impressions are especially strong upon a customer, it is equally necessary that the last impression be one of courteous and willing service. The elements of efficient salesmanship may be fur- ther shown by the following simple diagram. They are fivefold, as relating to the sales person, the system, the merchandise, the store, and the customer. Efficient Salesmanship Good taste in dress and manners Full com- pliance with the store system Thorough knowledge of merchan- dise Keen sense of responsibility to the store for results Genuine desire to satisfy the customer DIAGRAM OF SALESMANSHIP REQUIREMENTS The Boy in the Selling Department. A boy usually enters this department between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, at pay ranging from $3 to $4.50 a week, and with a maximum of $5 in simple duties before promotion. He will first act as floor boy or stock boy, whose duties have already been enumerated. After one SUPEEINTENDING AND SELLING 137 or two years he may be promoted to be inspector, with a maximum of $6 a week. After several years he may become a salesman, with pay rangmg from $10 to |20, except in the rare cases of great ability in certain lines of selling. A general progress in selling is, first, on cotton goods, then woolen goods, silks, linens, house- keeping goods, furniture, and draperies. This progress is not at all fixed, and sales people are transferred ac- cording to the changing demands of departments. The pay of the salesman in the dry-goods store is on the average a little higher than that found in the general department store. The salesman may become floor super- intendent, with pay ranging from $20 to $30 a week. From his knowledge of stock he may pass into the mer- chandise department as assistant buyer, with possible advance to buyer or merchandise manager. The Basis of Pay in Selling. While it may be said that pay follows the law of supply and demand in the department-store field, the regular wage of employees is based upon what they are worth in the view of the store management. In the selling department of some stores a certain amount of sales constitutes a "quota," which varies according to the selling sections. The sales made by any one person are expected to reach this quota, to warrant a fixed standard of pay. Often the sales person receives a percentage of the excess above the quota of his section. Suppose one's sales to total above $150 a week, the selling clerk may receive three per cent of the excess. Again, in some stores all selling clerks receive a percentage, as one half of one per cent, on all sales made during the holiday season. CHAPTER YIII THE OFFICE DEPAETME:N'T Its Nature. This is the division with which the firm or proprietors of a department store have closest con- nection. It is the division in which all departments meet and in which the business of the store centers. Here all finances and accounts are adjusted and con- trolled. This division is sometimes called the department of office work. Simple Office Divisions. Stores differ greatly in office divisions and methods, according to the magnitude of business and the number and personality of owners and managers. The simplest divisions, found in effect in the actual working of all stores, are the Main Office, from which the chief activities of the house are directed ; the Retail or Charge Office, in which credit accounts are kept ; and the Auditing Department, which reviews the transactions of the entire business. Divisions in Office Work in the Highly Organized Store. The office is divided into the foUowmg divisions, with subheads : 1. The Credit and Collection Department investigates the financial standing of applicants for credit, approves the opening of charge accounts, and makes collection after the bills have been rendered. 138 THE OFFICE DEPARTMENT 139 2. The Charge Account Bookkeeping makes a record of all the charge sales, debiting and crediting customers' accounts, and sees that itemized statements are sent to the customer at the close of each month, and that all payments by customers are properly "posted. 3. The Cashier's Office, or Accounting Room, as it is sometimes called, receives and deposits all of the cash which comes in, and keeps a record of all that goes out, debiting and crediting the proper accounts for each item. 4. The C.O.D. Division has charge of the accounts for all sales made to customers on a C.O.D. basis, keeps an individual record of each sale, and sees that the transportation company delivers the merchandise and that proper returns are made to the cashier's office. . 5. The Auditing Department is responsible for a daily examination and comparison of all transactions. It sees that the record of each sale as made by the selling depart- ment agrees with the cash received and charge accounts billed and the C.O.D. accounts billed, rendering a daily report of its work and verifying the total transactions for the day. 6. The Purchase-Records Department keeps a record of all outstanding orders for merchandise, enters on the daily sheet all invoices of merchandise, making sure that they are properly checked with the actual merchan- dise received, and returns the invoices to the payment department for entry and payment. 7. The Payment Department has charge of the pay- ment of all bills by check after they have been properly approved for receipt of the merchandise, its quality and 140 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS quantity, correct price, correct extension and footings, and for final authorization for payment. 8. The Stock-Record Department keeps a record by selling departments of the merchandise received, listed by date and day of invoice, name of manufacturer, total cost and retail of each invoice, and per cent of profit on each invoice. 9. The Statistical Department furnishes all kinds of statistical statements and reports for the information of 1 OFFICE MANAGER 1 Credits Clerical Bookkeeping Cash Office 1 1 1 1 A-udlting Payroll statistics Stock Records Charge Accounts C. 0. D. Accounts Payments DIAGRAM OF THE OFFICE DEPARTMENT the executives of the business, usually in comparative form and in great variety. Positions in the Office Department in the Highly Or- ganized Store : Treasurer and assistant treasurer ; office manager, who has charge of the keeping of the records ; assistant recording manager; credit manager, or credit man, who has oversight of the credit system of the store ; assistant credit man ; head auditor, who examines all accounts ; cashiers ; heads of retail divisions, who have charge of the office accounts of their division ; head of the division for the payment of bills; head of the THE OFFICE DEPAETMENT 141 division for CO. D. bills; head of the division of store records ; head of the pay-roll department ; clerks in each division ; collectors who follow up outside accounts ; stenographers and operators of typewriters ; bookkeepers ; secretaries ; and office boys. There are various titles for clerks in the office de- partment in different stores, determined by the particular duties of the clerk, such as billing clerks, who make out bills in the case of credit accounts, authorization clerks, who pass on sales to credit customers, and ledger clerks, who keep ledger accounts. Some stores use an outside collecting agency or have a regularly employed attorney. The Bookkeeper. The bookkeepers form a distinct division. They are really '' ledger clerks," or " ledger men," whose work consists in posting accounts to ledgers. They are generally young men. Some stores demand previous training in bookkeeping, others give an opportunity for a boy to learn it in office routine. An Actual Case of Advancement. Herewith is given an actual case of advancement in the office of a depart- ment store. This advance was almost exactly dupli- cated in a second store and is typical of the possibilities of office work. At the age of sixteen a boy entered the retail office as office and errand boy; at seventeen he was copying and adding on books; at eighteen he was figuring on invoices and on rates of profits; at nineteen, on rates of profits; at twenty he was making stock statements and profit statements; at twenty-one he was assistant in the stock office ; at twenty-six he was head of the 142 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS foreign office ; at thirty-four he was assistant to the treasurer; and at thirty-five he became the treasurer of the corporation. In these particular cases advancement resulted from hard and persistent effort and provided opportunity. Such advantage was taken of the first small promotions that there was fitness for the larger openings as they came, and the young man rose high in the service at a comparatively early age. The Boy in the Office Department. The boy may enter this department at the age of fourteen as an office boy at $3, $3.50, or |4 a week. After several years he would not generally receive over $5 or $6. If of suf- ficient ability he might be promoted to some clerical position in a division of the office or be transferred to some other department of the store. Older boys with evident ability or previous experience may enter in an advanced position as office clerk or assistant at $8 or $9 a week, advancing to $12 or $15. A boy may some- times enter as a stenographer and operator of type- writer at $6 a week, and advance to $15 or $20 after several years. The usual limits of pay for bookkeepers are $12 and $18. Heads of office divisions receive from $20 to $50 a week, while managers are paid salaries of several thousands of dollars a year. Service in this department is generally permanent, whether one masters only routine duties or becomes a division head or manager. In .every case efficiency is of permanent value to the entire system and receives proper reward in the matter of promotion and salary. CHAPTER IX THE ADVEETISING DEPAETMENT Its Nature. This is the division of publicity. Its work is to make known to the public the merchandise of the store. This is done in the daily papers or other periodicals, and by catalogues, circulars, placards, and store display, by a clear, concise, and attractive presen- tation of the nature and prices of goods for sale. The department must be in constant touch with all branches of the business. The Modern Trend. The advertising department is making great advancement in scope and in methods at the present time. Modern advertising is opening up a new field of occupation in all lines of trade, and no- where is it more effective or noticeable than in the retail advertising of the great department store. The matter of department-store publicity is often a question of the personality and ability of the head of the business. In many of our great stores the owner is a better advertiser than trader. In other stores the converse is true ; the proprietor may be a good buyer and seller but have little or no ability in advertising, succeeding largely by means of his superior trading qualities. On the one hand, a merchant who is a natural advertiser finds it necessary to surround himself with men who can bring to the busi- ness more skill and natural aptitude and experience in 143 144 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS, merchandising than he himself may possess. On the other hand, the man who is a natural trader but lacks the faculty of advertising will need more the services of men skilled in publicity. The newer conception, which is likely to be followed in the development of the function of retail advertising, is to take a larger view of both merchandising and advertising — to regard one as the buying and productive function and the other as the sales or distributing function, comprehending all forms of selling. This is the line on which the trade of the larger stores of the country is developing. Divisions in Store Advertising. The customary divi- sions of the publicity department of the store are news- paper advertising, art department, sign department, circulars and announcements. In some stores the mail- order department is an advertising division ; in others it is entirely separate. In some stores the advertising department is responsible for windows; in others this, also, is a separate division of the business. In some stores the advertising department is really a subdivision of merchandising; in most, however, it is an entirely separate department, responsible only to the head of the entire business. Positions. The usual positions are the advertising manager, assistant advertising manager, and office assist- ants ; the head of the art department and other artists ; the head window dresser and assistants ; the head of the sign department, sign writer, and assistants. The Publicity Manager. The head of the advertis- ing department must have versatility, breadth of view, and extensive knowledge of human nature. He is the THE ADVEKTISIKG DEPARTMENT 145 spokesman of the business, and must present it in such a manner as to attract and hold the patronage of the pubhc. While leading in the work of his department he must also follow the established policy of the house. He must keep in touch, as well, with methods used in the general field of advertising. His best preparation is threefold, coming from experience in merchandising, selling, and newspaper work. The publicity manager PUBLICITY MANAGER Controller Style Expert Competition Reports Records and Results Windows I Assistant Publicity Manager I Newspapers | [signs] [illustrations | [Decorations [ [Fixtures [ DIAGRAM OF THE ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT is the composite of an active newspaper man and an enterprising merchant. By a natural division of the duties of the department the manager may be assisted by men who occupy impor- tant places in the store publicity. Important Assistant Positions. There is usually an expert copy writer who understands also the use of types in printing. This writer knows exactly how much material will fill a certain amount of space ajud how to make the fewest words possible bring the greatest 146 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS results. Copy writers go into departments for material or call for it from the departments. There may be another person whose work consists in looking after the newspapers. He should know the nature, circulation, and advertising rates of all the papers in his city and suburban towns. He sees that a set of scrapbooks is kept in which are pasted all the advertisements of the store, cut from the various papers, as well as advertise- ments of other stores. Such information is of the highest value to the department and to the buyers of merchandise. Another assistant may keep a record of appropriations for advertising purposes and of the results, or the percentage of business gained from the outlay. He keeps a record, also, of the amount of news- paper space used by each department. There should be at least one artist to make drawings of merchandise for cuts and designs for special advertising. There should be one especially expert stenographer to take dictated copy from the manager or copy writers and to put it into such shape that the compositor can set it up readily and accurately. The Boy in the Advertising Department. The age limits for entering this department are usually fourteen and eighteen years. A boy would enter as errand boy or as helper to an advertising man, at $3 a week, but if nearer the higher limit of age and of evident ability he would receive |3.50 or |4. In this department he is generally chosen for his intelligence. His duties consist of running errands between the office and the different departments, carrying copy, assisting the news- paper man, and making himself generally useful. He THE ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT 147 may advance to |6 in two or three years' time. Then, if of sufficient hterary abihty or training and of good judgment in handUng advertising matter, he might be promoted to preparing advertisements, as received from buyers or assistant buyers of departments, for news- paper insertion. The pay for this work varies from |12 to $30 a week, averaging from $18 to |20. The next step would be assistant advertising man ; the final, advertising manager. Assistant managers receive from |20 to |35, and managers are paid a salary of from $50 a week to as high as |1 0,000 a year. Work producing Advertising Men. At the present time in the great stores more successful advertising men have come from newspaper work than from any other field. Many young men in the stores are now receiving their training under such advertising managers. Some buyers, because of their knowledge of merchandise and their ability to set forth its selling qualities, have found their place in the advertising department of a store. Young men from the selling department, also, enter the store-publicity work. Advertising holds an even place with the other divi- sions of the department store. It offers fewer positions for employment, but calls for high ability and presents large opportunities to young men with fitness for its duties. CHAPTER X CONDITIONS OF SEKVICE Hours of Employment. The hours of service iii the good department store are usually from 8.30 to 5.30, or 6 o'clock, with an hour off for lunch. Through the summer season stores usually close at five o'clock, and on Saturday afternoons at one o'clock. Some stores keep open evenings in the holiday season, and extra time is sometimes required of employees who have to do with the care of stock. Seasonal Increase in Trade. In some departments and in stores which are in part specialty houses, trade is in a degree seasonal. While a large and steady volume fills the entire year, special sales and seasons in the year bring such an increase of trade as to call for the addition of temporary employees. The largest increase comes at the time of the Christmas holidays. On the whole this seasonal increase does not greatly affect the service and prospect of the regular employees. The diagram on page 149 shows the seasonal and special fluctuations m the volume of trade. Seasonal Increase and Decrease in Number of Employ- ees. The largest volume of trade occurs in the spring and fall, or in the months of April, October, November, and December. The store which carries a full line of holiday goods, including a toy department, increases its 148 CONDITIONS OF SEEVICE 149 number of employees by from twenty to thirty per cent at the Christmas holidays. The same store falls about ten per cent below the normal in the periods of least trade, or in vacation time. The specialty store increases from ten to fifteen per cent at its busiest period and decreases about ten per cent in vacation time. An or- dinary department store, employing, for instance, four thousand people, usually enlarges this number by eight Special sales (not limited to months) Periods of overtime The holidays Jan. Ea ster Vacation months Special sales ^ X1VIC1,J ^ Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. DIAGRAM OF SEASONAL CHANGES The curved line represents approximately the usual temporary increase and decrease in the volume of business ; the broken line, the normal or average trade for the year hundred or more in the holiday season, and falls below by three or four hundred in the dull season. The best of those taken at the holiday season may be retained permanently, while the least efficient of those in earlier service in the store may be discharged. On the other hand, there is a growing number of people, mostly young and having, comparatively small personal ex- penses through living at home, who seek holiday employment only. Each year these people form a 150 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS considerable part of the increased number of employees in retail stores of all kinds in the holiday season. Vacation. Employees who have served a store for one year or more generally have an annual vacation of two weeks with pay. Physical Conditions. In older buildings there are sometimes insufficient light, ventilation, and space for comfortable service, but the best sanitary engineering is now secured in the modern department-store building. Influences making for Fatigue. In the busy retail house there is a tension not found in the wholesale house or in the various lines of manufacture. The sell- ing force works in an atmosphere charged with excite- ment. The bustling, hurrying, changing crowds, the meeting of so many people, the constant effort to do one's work quickly and acceptably, especially with the added need of pleasing the customer, produce more than physical weariness; they are nerve-wearing influences. Yet these same forces operate to make the mind alert and the wit keen, and to produce the efficient clerk and executive. Moreover, these strain-producing conditions are, in the better stores, offset in a measure by the vari- ous features of welfare work, by the effort of the store management to make the business atmosphere congenial and helpful, and by the spirit of comradeship that per- vades the body of employees in a department and throughout an entire store. The objections of greatest weight against service in a department store, such as low pay, poor ventilation, standing, and overwork, apply rather to the lower-grade stores and especially to female service. CONDITIONS OF SEEVICE 151 Competition in Service. A disadvantage to the young man, perhaps the worst he has to encounter in the de- partment-store field, is that of competition from female service. Girls and women are found in preponderating numbers in the great retail houses, and in some cases occupying higher positions, such as buyer or assistant buyer. Certain departments call for feminine taste and instinct, and the superior selling abilities of women in many lines of merchandise are generally recognized. In certain specialty stores, for instance, the sales force con- sists entirely of girls and women; and the positions in certain minor divisions of the large store not treated at length in this study, such as Information Bureau, Re- fund Desk, and Post-Office Station, are filled regularly by female employees. The relative divisions of employees in department stores at the present time are very nearly thirty per cent male and seventy per cent female. In the general store, male help is usually found in the heavy sections, such as furniture and carpets, often in the sections carrying the more expensive lines, such as silks, and almost exclusively in the division of men's clothing. Where the Way Divides. There is a period between the service of the boy and that of the man when ad- vancement seems to cease. This occurs usually when the limit of the boy's earnings has been reached and when only a few out of many employees may be promoted to the higher positions. It comes in merchandising, for in- stance, between the grade of head of stock and that of assistant buyer. When one has passed this line of demarcation his success in merchandising depends 152 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS largely on his ability. Again, in selling, in the smaller stores, there are few intermediate places between the ordinary clerk and the heads of departments. This period might be termed a point of turning, or a part- ing of the ways. The dull boy will drop out ; the bright, capable boy is likely to go on. The boy or young man of average ability may earn up to $10 or $12 in various places; above this there are few openings below |18 or |20. The higher business and executive positions call for marked ability and ca- pacity, and the great majority of boys fail to reach them. A conservative estimate mdicates that of the boys who enter department stores less than ten per cent remain permanently, and of this number probably from ten to twenty per cent only reach the higher places. The greater number leave the service at this point, where earnings cease to advance. Ambitious young men are attracted only by the high or executive positions in merchandis- ing, superintending, selling, advertismg, or recording. To remedy this condition and to secure a fairly per- manent body of trained employees, the most progressive department stores are organizing educational features, and are analyzing avenues of promotion with a spirit and energy which must enhance the value of depart- ment-store work as a vocation. Such stores as fail to appreciate the need of this service to their employees will be unable to attract the qualified youth. Service in a department store provides the best of practical training for one who may wish later to enter into business for himself or to seek employment in a specialty store or in a smaller establishment. CHAPTER XI SOCIAL-SERVICE WORK The Nature of this Work. In establishments whose employees number hundreds or thousands, there arises a need for various kinds of work for their general wel- fare. Much has been done along these lines in recent years in the best department stores. To-day the effort to make the business atmosphere congenial is one of the decided advantages to a young person who is about to enter the field. Managers in the business are recog- nizing more and more the need of consideration for the social welfare of the person employed and that among the conditions conducive to the best results are not only lighting, ventilation, and sanitation, but general good-fellowship among employees, permanent advance- ment, and social and vocational opportunities. There are now in most of the larger stores persons whose sole function is to study the needs of all employees and to provide the means for improving their general efficiency and weffare. Each store in which these agen- cies are developed provides rooms or meeting places for this new department of social-service work. The boy, therefore, who enters the well-regulated department store may feel that provision is made for his educational advancement along the lines of the business and for his social and material well-being. 153 154 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Three Lines of Opportunity. The work of this division falls into three general lines of opportunity or training, educational, administrative, and social, all of which tend to increase the welfare and efficiency of the employee. These may be grouped as follows : Educational Training The School of Salesmanship. By its school, of sales- manship the department store supplements the work of the public schools and gives practical training to the employee whose work lies in selling. 1. Class Work. This work is carried on by a regular instructor, who may be the educational director or an assistant. Employees of all ages and of all terms of service are taught the principles of salesmanship and sales-slip practice. Such a system of training in selling is the oldest and one of the most important forms of efficiency work in the modern store. A recent account of such a school in one large store contains the following: The value of the school is perhaps best illustrated by the attitude of the sales people themselves. At first there was an erroneous impression on the part of some that the classes were made up of sales people whose work was indifferent or unsatis- factory and that attendance was a reflection on their selling ability. This impression has now entirely disappeared. Those who at first thought it would be a stigma to attend are loudest in their praise of the school and of the value of the training which it gives, many have expressed regret that the classes were not longer, and there have been numerous requests for permis- sion to take the very same course a second time. It has been especially gratifying that sales people of many years' experience SOCIAL-SERVICE WORK 155 have frankly and voluntarily acknowledged the great assistance which they have received from the work. Buyers and floor superintendents are in the best position to see the results of the training received in the classes. The suc- cess of their departments depends to a large extent on the effi- ciency of their sales force. They can and do observe the work which is being done by each sales person, note the improvement on the part of each one who has attended the classes, and com- pare the work with that of other sales people who have not yet had the opportunity of receiving instruction. The verdict of the buyers and floor superintendents is unanimous. They have spoken in the most flattering terms of the good results achieved and of the great improvement which even a short course makes in the work of their sales people. The buyers and floor superin- tendents select those who are to attend the classes, and they are all eager to have as many of their sales people as possible receive the benefit which the instruction gives. Some of the topics treated in lectures by floor superintend- ents have been the following: The Attitude of Sales people toward the Floor Superintendent ; Courtesy ; Cooperation ; Hab- its; The Care of Stock; The Advantage of the School; Ambi- tion; Honesty; Discipline; Appearance; Patience; Opportunity; The Willing Worker. Administrative Training 1. Efficiency Bulletins. Small bulletins are usually issued at regular periods, for the purpose of giving em- ployees expert information and suggestion upon points of salesmanship and efficiency service. These bulletins are placed in the hands of the floor managers, who read them to their employees, with added comment as occasion may require, and post them in proper places. Such a bulletin generally deals with one im- portant topic, from the pomt of view of the store management. 156 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS 2. Merchandise Conferences. The buyer regularly gives informal talks to the sales force in his depart- ment as to the nature of merchandise to be sold. 3. Efficiency Records. These are rating sheets for the younger employees, such as stock and floor boys and girls, who are doing work of an apprenticeship nature. These records are made out monthly by their immediate executive, the floor manager. Such records are placed on file in the educational office. 4. School Enrollment. This means practically voca- tional guidance, or advice, extending to all the people in the organization. The educational director, or adviser, holds interviews with employees, to discuss their former training, present ambitions, and further courses of study in schools or classes outside OJi the store. A record is kept of all such school attend ince. Some department- store employees are enrolled in university-extension courses. Provision is made, also, for admission to outside lectures which are likely to be of a stimulating and helpful character. Social Features Under this heading may be grouped all those advan- tages which have nothing to do directly with training one for better service in his department. Every regular employee of the store is entitled to be a member of the associations or clubs organized in this division. Gener- ally no dues are imposed and participation in club work is optional. The chief organizations may be enumerated as follows : SOCIAL-SERVICE WORK *■ 157 1. A Mutual-Aid Association, established to give its members a voice in their government, to increase their efficiency, and to add to their social opportunities. 2. An Insurance or Mutual-Benefit Association, with a very small initiation fee and weekly dues, which pro- vides a definite benefit in case of sickness or death. 3. A Savings-Deposit System for employees, guaran- teed by the firm against all losses. Employees may leave their pay on deposit, with interest as in a savings bank. 4. A Medical Department, free to employees, with a medical adviser who comes to the store at certain stated periods for consultation with store people who may be in need of such services. In some cases a woman physician is added to the staff and a nurse is provided. General lectures upon health are given before meetings of employees. In connection with this department health and athletic committees are frequently formed. 5. The Lecture Committee. Health talks have led to lecture courses, with well-known speakers on subjects of interest, given regularly at the end of the store day. 6. The Library Committee. This committee supplies the popular trade and literary magazines, books, and daily papers. 7. The Suggestion Committee, organized "to encour- age thought and to interest employees in the policy and activities of the store." This committee offers prizes for suggestions that may in any way result in help or profit to the business. 8. The Entertainment Committee, which arranges summer outings, or various social meetings for employees. 158 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS 9. The Club-House Committee, which provides a dining room or advantages for lunches or low-cost food for employees. 10. The Music Committee, whose duty it is to ar- range for the musical training or practice of employees. 11. A Store Paper, containing matters of social or special interest to employees. Workers in this Division. The names of positions in weKare work are as yet unsettled. The terms "educa- tional director" and "welfare manager" have been in use in some stores. The educational director has charge of agencies for the training of employees in efficiency ; the welfare manager, of social work or of all activities for the promotion of efficiency and well-being. The manager and director are regularly assisted by subcommittees of store people, or by special helpers such as may be necessary to conduct any activity in welfare work. A Sample Daily Club Report. Herewith is given a sample " Consolidated Daily Report of Store Organiza- tions" used by one of the great stores of the country. The list of this report includes such organizations as are additional to the customary work of a store and may be called clubs. The traming given in these clubs is edu- cational and disciplinary, and increases the interest and efficiency of the employee for the business with which he is connected. It creates an esprit de corps in an estab- lishment and repays many fold any outlay on the part of a firm. The advancement of the young person de- pends largely upon the individual. He should show a readiness and willmgness to profit by the opportunities for training provided by the store. SOCIAL-SERVICE WOEK 159 CONSOLIDATED DAILY REPORT OE STORE ORGANIZATIONS Organization Classes Senior Branch Junior Branch Cornet Section Bass Section Traps and Drums Clarinet Section Saxophone Section Alto Section Boys' Bugle Boys' Drum Advanced Violin Beginners' Violin Orchestra Glee Club Military Band Senior Bugle and Drum Corps . Junior Bugle and Drum Corps . Military and Physical Drills Provisional Company, A . . . Provisional Company, B . . . Hospital Corps Junior Boys Veteran Corps' Meeting . . , Dramatic Club Rehearsal . . . Debating Club Meeting . . . Board of Officers' Meeting . . Alumni Association Choral Society Business Club Athletic Association Beneficial Association .... Employees' S. and L. Assoc. . Carriers' Inspection Mem- beksiiip Time Location 160 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS CONSOLIDATED DAILY KEPORT OF STORE ORGANI- ZATIONS (Continued) Organization Mem- bership Absent Time Location Classes Night-Watch Drill House Porters' Drill Fire-Tower Drill Valve Drill Fire Brigade Drill Elevator Operators' Drill . . . • Remarks CHAPTER XII THE EMPLOYEE, PAY, AND PROMOTION SUGGESTIONS FROM AN EMPLOYER TO YOUNG PERSONS WHO MAY WISH TO ENTER THIS OCCUPATION I bring to you a message from the World of Business. You demand my credentials ; you want to know by what right and authority I dare to encroach upon the domains of your minds and try to influence your thought. In other words, you. want to know whether I am a competent authority on my subject or not. My answer is that I have lived in the business world, both here and in Europe for many years, that I have employed many thousands of boys and girls, men and women, and that my duties have given me large opportunities for observation. Are my cre- dentials satisfactory? It is your right and duty to examine a man's credentials before you allow his influence to enter into your life, whether he be your physician, your lawyer, or business man. I think this is of vast importance and I hope I have made my point clear. Now I want you to imagine that you have finished your school education and that you are at my office door seeking employment. I will tell you before you enter that I shall be influenced to a large extent by your personal appearance. Much depends upon my first impression of you. Many a young man has received short audience in my office because his linen was soiled and his hands yellow with nicotine, and more than likely I have turned away some men and women of ability, just on account of the bad impression they made upon me by their untidy personal appearance. I tell you this, that you may see the great im- portance of always looking your best, and especially when seeking a position. 161 162 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Now we will assume that I am satisfied with your personal appearance ; my first impression of you has been in your favor, but that is not enough. The only safe way to judge a man's future is to know his past. You must fill out one of these appli- cation blanks that I show you, in which, as you see, I ask you many pertinent questions ; you must account to my satisfaction for a certain number of years of your life. You must give me the names of everybody by whom you have been employed, also the name of your last school teacher. I shall write to all these people, asking them to. substantiate your statements and to give me their opinion of your honesty and ability, assuring them that their replies will be treated as absolutely confidential. Your em- ployment now depends upon the answers I receive from these people. If there is the least doubt about your honesty, I shall not hire you. . But if all of your references as to honesty are good, added to the good impression your appearance has made upon me, even though your last employer does not speak highly of your ability, I may engage you, and trust to the new environ- ment to make an eflBcient man of you, but you must bring to my office a clean bill of character, or your case is hopeless. Now we will assume that you. have satisfied me on every point. I have been impressed by your courteous manner and your personal appearance. Your former employers and your school teacher, in answer to my inquiries, have recommended you highly as to character and ability, and I have decided to take you into the employ of the great house I represent. Before taking you and turning you over to the head of the department in which I intend to start you, I will ask you to take a seat in my office, while I give you some sound advice. Always, and under all conditions, be courteous. I know of nothing that will help you over the difficulties you will encounter in the world, and in your work, like courtesy. Everybody stands ready to help the courteous man or woman. I think the most powerful words in the English language are "please" and "thank you." You can lift mountains with them. Another link in the chain that I am forging for you is perse- verance. Without this link, your chain is weak indeed. I want to tell you of a certain type of boy who comes to me for employment. THE EMPLOYEE, PAY, AND PEOMOTION 163 I look up from my desk and say that we have no opening to-day. Still he persists, saying that he is willing to do anything, no matter what it is. Again I answer, telling him I am sorry, but I have nothing to offer him. He goes to the door and then again turns back with some new suggestions as to his ability to fill some position. By his very perseverance he has attracted my attention, and I say to myself, if that boy is as persistent with his work as he is with me, he will be a success. He has won. I hire him. You tell me that you have always been afraid to go to work in a great department store, with its thousands of employees, for fear that you would be overlooked and your ability not recog- nized. Let me tell you that the larger the store, the more and the better the opportunities for your ability. If you are over- looked, it 's your fault. Do something to attract attention to yourself. For educational equipment, you must be able to write a good plain hand, to express yourself in the English language with pre- cision and brevity, and to spell correctly. You must be able to do examples in common arithmetic, such as addition, subtraction, extension, discount, and percentage. What surprises the business man, is the deficiency in these things that he finds in many boys and girls who take up the business life. You would be surprised if you knew how a large concern suffers from poor work in these simple requirements. The principal fault of the average man and woman who apply for work in which these requirements are necessary is inaccuracy. Let your training be as accurate as possible in the studies I have mentioned. Cultivate honesty, courtesy, accuracy, initiative, • persistency, and a love of hard work, and you have, altogether, a good equipment with which to make a business success. Some Qualities Required. The requirements for serv- ice in a department store are exacting. Boys who enter should have good health and habits; they should be willing to work hard, through a long and busy day, and to obey as if under a military system ; they should be neat in appearance, gentlemanly in manner, and 164 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS quick to think and act. One who looks to the higher places must have executive ability or 'business capac- ity, and show faithfulness and interest in any minor or intermediate position that he may hold. Stores are con- ducted first of all on business principles, and the young man whose service is most efficient, or most profitable to the business as a. whole, is the one selected for promotion. Educational Training. Most of the good department stores require at least a full grammar-school education. One must have the simple English branches, with good training in penmanship, the English language, and arith- metic. Elementary business and commercial courses are helpful, and a high-school education is an advantage. The young man as well as the young woman may now offer a knowledge of stenography and typewriting. In executive positions in the most advanced stores are found college graduates or men of advanced educa- tional or mercantile training, in increasing numbers. The courses in finance and business administration now offered in some colleges and universities are of the highest value to the young man who would fit himseK to go into the department-store field as into a profession. Young men with the simplest education have advanced to the highest places in the great stores in the past, in many cases growing up with the business ; but at the present time there is a large and increasing demand for the best of business-educational training and equipment. There are two main lines of purpose and progress open to the department-store employee who wishes to make his mark. The first, and perhaps more advisable, is to train himself to become a THE EMPLOYEE, PAY, AND PEOMOTION 165 thoroughly efficient and expert department-store man; the sec- ond, to achieve expertness in some particular department. To accomplish the first, one must acquire something more than a superficial knowledge of niany things, — of the many dif- ferent businesses that center in the department store as a whole. He must know something of the express and freight business, something of the arts of advertising and correspondence, some- thing of arithmetic and accounts, of salesmanship and merchan- dising, of seasons, demand, and supply. He cannot know too much or be too competent. He must become a master of depart- ment-store routine and requirements. Such a man has a train- ing that gives his services a commercial value wherever English is spoken and goods are sold. If you have decided to become a department-store expert, a transfer from one department to another can only broaden your experience, enlarge your knowledge, and acquaint you with prob- lems that you have not before had the opportunity to study. The other course is to specialize; to select some particular kind of merchandise — woolens, linens, millinery, ready-made garments — and study and learn that line literally from the ground up ; to familiarize oneself with the production of the raw material, with processes, methods, varieties, qualities, markets, prices, and seasons. If it be your purpose to specialize, a transfer may mean any of several things, — that you are not as valuable in your special branch as you had supposed, or that you have proved yourself so useful in some specific way that your services in that respect are, temporarily, more valuable to the house in some other de- partment than in your own. If your specializing is as good as you take it to be, it will be strong enough to draw you back to your chosen department when the temporary stress is over.^ Pay. Pay for the unskilled and untrained boy who enters the department store is about what he will earn at first in any mercantile business. It runs from |3 to |6 a week for the boy from fourteen to eighteen years 1 Quoted from a department-store paper. 166 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS of age, and is rather a matter of age than of position. By promotion and transfer he may advance to $12 or $15, outside of selHng, or to |18 as a salesman. In some of the larger stores salesmen of high ability in cer- tain departments, such as rugs, furniture, or silks, may receive as much as $35 or $40 a week. It requires special ability and aptitude to reach the higher positions that lie beyond the break between the $12 position, which may be taken as an average of the lower grades, and places paying $20 or more. The man's pay in the various lines of store service ranges from $10 or $12 upward. While it may be said that the rank and file of employees can be easily replaced, yet because of the remarkable growth of department stores in recent years there has arisen an increased demand for employees, greater than time alone could produce, especially for the higher positions. Pay, therefore, in these advanced places is higher than under old conditions or than it would otherwise be. At the present time there are not enough boys and young men of higher ability and fit- ness entering the department stores to fill the places of greater responsibility and profit when reached in course of service. Accordingly, stores are obliged to search among their employees for persons worthy of promotion, to take help from smaller houses and specialty stores, and often to advertise for help for particular lines of service or for the holiday trade. Pay" in the upper positions, then, must be such as to draw young men of the desired qualities, of experience, or with a knowledge of merchandise and trade condi- tions. Salaries range from $20 or $25 a week, or from THE EMPLOYEE, BAY, AND PROMOTION 167 $1000 to many thousands of dollars a year. Heads of departments, buyers, superintendents, advertising men, and merchandise men receive as high salaries as are paid generally in the world of commerce or manufacture. Promotion. Because of the great number of merchan- dise departments in a modern store and the thousands of people employed, there must be constant promotion all along the line. Positions are left vacant by persons who leave the store through unfitness, to enter other occupations, or on account of age ; and new positions are steadily created through the expansion of business. As has been said abeady in this study the chief oppor- tunity of the boy is found in the merchandise depart- ment. Knowledge of merchandise may bring an opening for him in all departments except that of office work which, like office work in any other field, is not depend- ent upon the nature of the business. He may grow up in merchandising to buying, or through selling to superintending, or find a place in advertising where knowledge of merchandise is a prime factor. Some positions, as elevator boy and shipper, are not in the nature of apprenticeship and bring no advance, though transfers from such duties are frequently made. A boy may be transferred from one department to another whenever he seems fitted to fill an opening position. Superintendents and managers are constantly promoting and transferring boys and young men to keep the upper places filled, and taking on new help for the places left open at the bottom. There is con- stant change with continual effort to obtain, promote, and hold the most efficient people. It is not easy to 168 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS obtain boys who have patience and determination to stand by when the break comes between the boy's pay and the man's pay, after three or four years of service. Most boys who enter department stores, even though some of them are worthy of advancement, drop out at this time. From the small percentage remaining, the higher places^ numbering into the hundreds in most of the large stores, must be filled. Advice from a Store Manager. Herewith are given certain points of advice, touching upon promotion, from the general manager of one of the largest and best- known department stores in the country: 1. Remember that the larger and stronger the organization, as a rule, the slower the progress of a beginner therein, but the greater the reward in the end, to the one who will stick and continue to grow. 2. Advancement is inevitable and need not be sought else- where, provided the young man in question continues to study as well as work. He must know his present "job" and perform its duties thoroughly, but in addition he must be climbing higher in his observation, thinking, studying, and reading, so that instead of settling into a rut he is steadily broadening in his knowledge and capacity. 3. When he finds himself sought out with offers of positions else- where he may fairly well conclude that he is making good progress where he is, and that in all probability to hold on until he has reached or is ready for the top, where he now is, will do more for him in the end than to step aside for that which may offer a little larger sum immediately in hand but is only a way station. There are those who need to drift around from place to place, because in so doing they receive the knocks and the pressure which compel progress. These are those who have not got it in them to compel their advance from within themselves. Those who can do the latter usually rise best by perseverance and con- tinuance in the suitable thing or the position first undertaken. THE EMPLOYEE, PAY, AND iPEOMOTION 169 In the great majority of cases service in a department store is of high value as a training for a boy ; many who leave the large es- tablishment go into good positions in other stores or in other fields. Positions which bring a boy into contact with the firm, with the stock, or with customers are the ones that lead him ahead. Actual, Cases of Advancement. The most usual lines of promotion and transfer for boys may be best shown by actual examples in one of the large stores, among those investigated, for the month of July, there being from one to six cases of each of the following: floor boy to retail office; floor boy to shipping room; office boy to stock boy ; office boy to time desk ; errand boy to inspector ; errand boy to truckman ; teller to stock boy ; inspector to retail office ; inspector to mail-order department; inspector to receiving room; inspector to stock boy; inspector to examiner; inspector to bushel- ing room ; inspector to adjustment office ; truck to sales- man ; truck to inspector ; truck to office ; stock boy to salesman ; elevator boy to salesman in the bedding sec- tion. To this may be added a few cases of young men during the same time and in the same store: salesman to floor superintendent ; cashier to retail office ; assistant buyer to buyer in the hosiery department ; salesman to overseer of juvenile help ; assistant buyer of silks to manager of a millinery house of an outside firm ; from the stock office of the store to the department of school supplies of the city of Boston, through a civil-service examination. This was in the comparatively quiet season of the year. About twenty new boys were taken into the busi- ness to fill the vacancies caused by such promotions. 170 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Following are some examples of actual advancement in a large store, of boys who began and continued their business career in one store exclusively. At the earlier periods indicated by these dates the term " cash boy " was in more general use than at the present time. ENGAGED AS CASH BOY, SEPTEMBER, 1887 Cash Boy Office Boy in Superintendent's Office Stock Boy in Hosiery and Underwear Salesman in Hosiery and Underwear Decorator and Buyer's Clerk in same Assistant in same Buyer now in same Makes two Foreign trips annually. 8 months 12 years 1 year 1 year 2 years 2 years 5^ years ENGAGED AS CASH BOY, NOVEMBER, 1899 Cash Boy 1 year Errand Boy in Bureau of Adjustments ... 1 year Clerk in Bureau of Adjustments 1 year Tracer in Bureau of Adjustments 1 year Office Boy in Furniture 9 months Clerk in Furniture Office 2 years Stock Clerk in Furniture 2 years Assistant and Buyer 3^ years ENGAGED AS CASH BOY, DECEMBER, 1888 Office Boy in Superintendent's Office .... 3 years Clerk in Superintendent's Office 4 years Chief Clerk in Superintendent's Office ... 3 years Assistant in Oriental Goods 6 years Buyer of Oriental Goods 6 years Makes annual Foreign trip. THE EMPLOYEE, PAY, AND PROMOTION 171 ENGAGED AS CASH BOY, MAY, 1904 Cash Boy 5 months Office Boy in Bureau Adjustments .... 6 months Stock Boy in House Furnishings 1 year Stock Keeper in Ladies' Suits 3 years Head of Stock in Ladies' Suits 2 years Assistant Head now 8 years ENGAGED AS CASH BOY, OCTOBEK, 1894 Cash Boy Office Boy and Clerk in Notions . . Stock Boy in same department . . Charge of Stock in same department Second Assistant in same department First Assistant in same department now 1 year 3 years 2 years 4 years 4 years 3 years The following quotation from a government investi- gation ^ is of interest, although on the employment of women, as agreeing with the investigations whose re- sults are presented in this book, and as pointing the way for the boy as well as the girl. The dominant forces in department-store organization, of course, are the men who furnish the capital. They provide the money and they expect results. They must know and trust their assistants. The greatest care is necessary, therefore, in their selection. A large department store employs a manager, who engages the buyers and has general supervision of the depart- ments ; and a superintendent of employees, who has general charge of the working force. Next in rank to the manager are the real heads of departments, or " buyers," as they are generally called. These are men or women who have risen from the ranks. 1 '' Wage-Earning Women in Stores and Factories." Volume V of Report on the Condition of Women and Child Wage Earners in the United States, 1910, Department of Commerce and Labor, Senate Document No. 645, p. 40. 1T2 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS In nearly every case they are graduates from behind the counter. The rank of buyer or assistant buyer is, therefore, the highest position open to females. It is the goal of the ambitious sales- woman — the dream of many a little cash girl. Next in rank below the buyers and assistant buyers, or department heads, are the saleswomen, who constitute nearly half of all the women employees. What are the requirements of a good saleswoman ? A verba- tim quotation from an official of one of the largest department stores in the country shows what is expected of her : " Expert knowledge of goods and stock ; expert knowledge of people and the community in which the store is located ; expert knowledge of styles, fashions, and customs ; intimate knowledge of the principles and policies of the store ; absolute honesty in dealings ; utmost courtesy and kindness ; accuracy in filling orders ; a good memory for names and faces ; a single desire to please and satisfy the customers, upholding at all times the dig- nity and honor of the store. Good goods and good service are the great foundation stones of a store, and the sales people must help to keep these foundations firm. Physical health and cleanliness of person and a clear brain are of vital importance." SUMMARY OF POSITIONS Members of the Eirm or Corporation, or High Officials Proprietor President Secretary Treasurer General Manager Board of Managers 1. The Merchandise Manager 2. The Store Manager (General Superintendent or Super- intendent of Selling) 3. Office Manager 4. Advertising Manager THE EMPLOYEE, PAY, AND PROMOTIOK 173 I. The Merchandise Department The Merchandise Manager The Assistant Merchandise Manager 1. The Receiving Room Head Receiver Assistant Head Receiver Receiving Clerk Examiner Bill Clerk Porters Handlers a. Retumed-Goods Department Clerk Packers Assistant Packers 2. The Marking Room Head Marker Assistant Head Marker Markers 3. The Stock Room Stock Man Stock Boys, or Assistants 4. The Division of Buying Buyers Assistant Buyers Heads of Stock . Office Clerks II. Superintending and Selling The Store Manager, or General Superintendent 1. The Employment Office The Employment Manager Assistant Employment Manager Office Clerks 174 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS 2. Floor Superintending The Floor Superintendent, or Eloor Manager Floor Clerk 3. Selling Superintendent of Selling Selling Clerks Floor Boys 4. The Educational or Welfare department The Educational Director, or Welfare Manager Assistant Workers 5. The Division of Expense The Expense Man Assistants 6. The Division of Supply and Construction The Superintendent of Construction Purchasing Agent Head Engineer Engineers Electricians Carpenters Painters Head Elevator Man Elevator Men Head Porter Porters Night Superintendent Watchman Cleaners 7. The Mail-order Department Head of the Mail-Order Department Assistant Department Clerks 8. The Delivery System The Head Examiner Assistant Head Examiner Head Shipper Assistant Head Shipper THE EMPLOYEE, PAY, A^D PROMOTION 175 Shippers Collectors of Bundles Bookers, or Entry Clerks Billing Clerks III. The Office Department The Treasurer , Assistant Treasurer Attorney to the Firm OflBce Manager Assistant Office Manager Credit Manager Assistant Credit Manager Head Auditor Assistants Secretaries Cashiers Heads of Retail Divisions Heads of Payment Divisions Heads of Store-Records Divisions Assistants and Clerks in these Divisions Collectors Stenographers Operators of Typewriters Bookkeepers Billing Clerks Authorization Clerks Ledger Clerks Office Boys IV. The Advertising Department The Advertising Manager Assistant Advertising Manager Office Assistants Head of the Art Department Artists Head Window Dresser Assistants Head of the Sign Department Sign Writer Assistants Errand Boys 176 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Positions not limited to the Department Store. Many of the positions enumerated in the four great divisions of the department store belong to other kinds of retail trade as well. Such are the selling clerk, the bookkeeper, and the shipper. Among positions not enumerated, and found in other kinds of stores, may be mentioned two, the furrier and the store detective. The Furrier. The furrier must be a person skilled in the making of fur garments, or with such knowledge of fur goods and their manufacture as to be efficient as a salesman. The buying of furs is done by some buyer who handles other lines as well. The pay, while higher than that of the unskilled employee in ordinary lines, varies according to the skill of the furrier and the magnitude of that department in a business. One should prepare for this position in the regular furrier's establishment. The Store Detective. Modem conditions of doing business, such as the increased volume of trade and crowded aisles, especially in the holiday season, compel the large store to protect itself from the loss of goods by theft thrQugh the employment of a store detective. A very large store has one or more in permanent serv- ice; smaller stores, at least one in the holiday season. The store detective must have native talent for detec- tive work, keen knowledge of human nature, power of observation, and caution. It is an important and well- paid occupation. Actual detective work is usually done by women ; the man generally acts as chief of detectives. Additional Activities. Some of the very large depart- ment stores conduct certain branch lines of business or THE EMPLOYEE, PAY, AND PEOMOTION 177 manufacture in connection with their general trade, thus reaching out into other and smaller fields of enterprise. These lines include clothing, furniture, kitchen ware, sporting goods, pianos, jewelry, and a few other kinds of goods sold in the general store. Heads of Factories. The superintendents and respon- sible heads of such factories, plants, or workrooms are often selected from among the employees of the store itself, sometimes being the personal representatives of the proprietor. In every case the enterprise exists as an expansion of the store, and must contribute to its annual profits. The managers of the branches, therefore, must be in close touch with the main business. The body of employees, on the other hand, is chiefly composed of people who have no connection with the store. 178 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS TABLE IX. NUMBER AND PROPORTION OF PERSONS IN THE GENERAL DIVISIONS OF OCCUPATIONS. NUMBER AND PER CENT OF DISTRIBUTION, U. S. CENSUS, 1910 Table 8 Sex axd Gexekal Division of Occupatioxs Number 1910 Per Cent Distri- bution Both Sexes All occupations Agriculture, forestry, and animal husbandry Extraction of minera;ls Manufacturing and mechanical industries . . Transportation Trade Public service (not elsewhere classified) . . Professional service Domestic and personal service Clerical occupations Male All occupations Agriculture, forestry, and animal husbandry Extraction of minerals Manufacturing and mechanical industries . . Transportation Trade Public service (not elsewhere classified) . . Professional service Domestic and personal service Clerical occupations Female All occupations Agriculture, forestry, and animal husbandry Extraction of minerals Manufacturing and mechanical industries . . Transportation Trade : Public service (not elsewhere classified) . . Professional service Domestic and personal service Clerical occupations 38,167,336 100.0 12,659,203 33.2 964,824 2.5 10,658,881 27.9 2,637,671 6.9 3,614,670 9.5 459,291 1.2 1,663,569 4.4 3,772,174 9.9 1,737,053 4.6 30,091,564 100.0 10,851,702 36.1 963,730 3.2 8,837,901 29.4 2,531,075 8.4 3,146,582 10.5 445,733 1.6 929,684 3.1 1,241,328 4.1. 1,143,829 3.8 8,075,772 100.0 ,807,501 1,094 ,820,980 106,596 468,088 13,558 733,885 ,530,846 593,224 22.4 Less than I'o of 1% 22.5 1.3 5.8 0.2 9.1 31.3 7.3 THE EMPLOYEE, PAY, AKD PEOMOTION 179 p j -^ >0 t-; 00 GO ' CO oi O T-H s\t JO Oi <^-J CO Tin OO C^ lO C-i r-i IC t- «0 TtH 00 '-'5 c-1 CO 92 0 O 30 ^ IC c-1_co_^o p_ T^Tt^rT-Tco'i-r C5 I- 00 CO CO ».-: ,-1 rH CO C>1 O tH CO Tt^ C-1 00 «5 t- t- 00 CO O-l 01 ' ^ CO X 1^ ■ T-H as CI c- CO 00 coco CO CO T-' T-l O ^ ^ ^ 'o OO' (NCO"-* 00^1 CO t-co »-o CO CO »c lO t- 1-1 iH 00 tJI 00 »o C-1 Ol X^CO CO^"* C5_ crT-Tb-'x'b-'- CO T-H CO (M 01 t-cococ; 05 Tf •<* CO »C '*^C0CO^ c'lffco^of OS rfO O CO OS X O C5 CO' X X -H CO o ; CO >c OS Oi oi 00 ci Tj5 th iM CO T-i(N ^ Oi-Ti'Tb^ CO 'M CO O C 0 ^ i O 1-1 0-1 CO OS O X t- S g^ § a a ou „.|giP «« .2 5-8 n w Ph cc 1-f ^ M p^ pg O 5^ P^ P^ Oi P3^ ^ W {2; on >- rH S' {25 f^ < s B ^ « ?^, <1 -^ §^ » Cfi S s >< f^ w H >^ O W o H o .^ ^ W 9 (=^ o s < ^S gs? >C O '-I (NO t~ 1-1 IQ t-- l-H fe W gg«s i» t s IIS i ffs 11 Hi CO Is ci -* U S §8 g »-i i-i 'J' CO sO III t't- *S c^cs mSw I ill gj. i i i III 11 li ^Si is i I2 . S Ci « »o lO C5 00 « ?: J? S' S s? CO 3 >o c^ Igi IS i r-l eO CO 8 §8 ti o\ 00 ifi "* «o CO o OS g is O t- CO C5 00 »H t-^ S si ii ill gg g I s S3S3 S-3 5?38Sc35 ^ 3 Tfr-I eO»H t^,-,rt rt o ■5-2 as cq CD 182 •SI'S . fc . S 2 S ^ * ti -fci "t; !K <» S O ft -?, fe P >< ? 3S ^ S ■* t~ •* ci la CO ^ ^ n o S5 §5 8 ^^ i 50 eo 1-1 ^ 10 05 t- S3 2 " g I SS @ 10 e<5 i§ i lis g 11 gf i I OS (N O » I? S' ill "' ^^' ?" ^ ^. « ^, ci ec eo a o d " o .2'C si f 00 si (U las fl S M CO 1— I '-' S e3 ® •3-16 ft * *" S.C3 CO -. « e8 O o) .si 2 S ^^ 5^3 « p-< -*^ •'-I S .C3 „, ft=. a s be a •3S 2 a- o 'O ^ c -^S o o £ >.'c! _, a fa P-( M g C» iH 0^ OS OJ -"f a o >>:2 a 2 ee _5 a .a 2 -^^ ft o 11 PAET THREE FINANCE AS ILLUSTKATED BY BANKING PART THREE CHAPTER XIH BANKING The Business : its Nature, Divisions, and Future. There are six kinds of banking iastitutions in the United States, — federal reserve banks, national banks, state banks, trust companies, savings banks, and build- ing and loan associations. Besides these there are many- private firms of bankers, and stock and bond brokerage houses, whose business is in many respects closely allied to that of the banks. The essential functions of a bank are to receive deposits and make loans. There are also a number of other services performed by different kinds of banks, such as issuing notes and dealing in domestic and foreign exchange. National banks derive their charters from the national government. They serve as depositories for public funds and for individuals and firms. They grant credit and in large measure furnish a medium of exchange hi the form of checks, as well as that of currency, which they are allowed to issue under the National Bank Act. The national bank is a commercial bank and loans largely to commercial interests. Sometimes it has a savings department. 187 188 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS State banks are essentially the same in the character of their business as the national banks, except that they do not issue notes. They are chartered by the state and regulated by state officials. The trust company receives its charter fropa the state in which it is located. It can do all that the national bank can, except to issue currency. It receives money on deposit, makes loans, grants credits, acts as trustee for individuals and estates and as transfer agent for corporations. Some trust companies have savings de- partments. The savings bank, also, receives its charter from the state. In Massachusetts and New York all savings banks are mutual, the deposits being the capital of the bank and not subject to check. Investments of savings banks are all limited by public statutes, and first mortgage on real estate is the preferred form of security. Mutual savings banks are in the nature of philanthropic institutions. The building and loan association is chartered by the state. It is the most democratic form of banking. Its distinctive feature is the compulsory system of monthly payments by depositors, this being its sole forni of de- posit. Investments are almost wholly in first mortgages on real estate. In INIassachusetts the building and loan associations are called cooperative banks. The stock and bond business is carried on without incorporation, usually by brokerage firms which are ordinary partnerships. Members of a stock exchange deal in railroad and industrial stocks and bonds and in town and city bonds. BANKING 189 Under the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 there have been established twelve federal reserve banks, which began business simultaneously on November 16, 1914. These banks are similar in character of organization to other banks, with the exception that their capital is subscribed by banks and that their business is only with banks. National banks and state institutions that may avail themselves of the privilege of joining the system are obliged to deposit a portion of their reserve moneys in these banks. The federal reserve banks will make the commercial notes invested in by its members available for reserve purposes through their rediscounting function. They will also issue federal reserve bank notes which in time will probably take the place of the notes now issued by the national banks, and they will become clearing houses for checks on banks throughout the country. While the new system modifies the national banking system, it will not materially change the work of the bank employee. It will, rather, in some degree increase the avenues of opportunity to the efficient and ambitious young man in the banking business. The physical conditions of the occupation are of the highest grade. A possible danger is that of the mes- senger service, on the street and in carrying large sums of money. There is great moral danger to young men on the speculative side of the stock and bond business, and, as a rule, no broker is allowed to receive orders from a clerk of another firm. There is keen competition among national banks and trust companies in bidding for deposits, and in the 190 BUSmESS EMPLOYMENTS stock and bond business for speculation and invest- ment. There is little competition among savings banks and cooperative banks. These have their lists of de- positors, and interest rates are controlled by business conditions. The business of the future in all lines will be excel- lent, because of the vital connection of the banking business with the money system of the country, and with all lines of activity in the financial and industrial world. The Board of Directors. The management of commer- cial banks and trust companies is vested in a board of directors elected by the shareholders. The usual qualifi- cations for a director are that he shall be a citizen of the United States and the owner of at least ten shares of the stock of the bank or trust company, free from all encumbrance. In the case of mutual savings banks these officers are called trustees, and are elected by the corporation. Executive Officers. The chief executive officers of a bank are generally the president, vice president, cashier, and assistant cashier. In large banks there may be more than one vice president and more than one assistant cashier. In trust companies and savings banks the title of the officer whose duties correspond to those of the cashier is usually " treasurer." The President and Vice President. The president is the chief executive of the board of directors. He has general supervision of the business of the bank in its various departments. He determines or joins with other officers in determining loans and investments and other BANKING 191 matters of great importance in the business of the bank. The vice president is usually authorized to act in the absence or inability of the president. Otherwise he performs such duties as are assigned to him by the directors. The Cashier and Assistant Cashier. The cashier is usually the chief executive officer of a bank in the routine of its management. He is generally made re- sponsible for all the moneys, funds, and valuables of the bank. He signs all contracts, checks, drafts, and circulating notes. The assistant cashier performs duties assigned to him by the directors, especially in the way of relieving the cashier of smaller responsibilities. Departments of Bank Work. The departments of a bank are made up of the following divisions: paying, receiving, discount or note division, collections and cor- respondence, loans and discounts, bonds and stocks, foreign exchange, credit, information, bookkeeping, and advertising. These departments cover in a general way the work that is constantly going on within a bank under the cashier as the executive head. There may be a chief clerk under him who has supervision of the clerical force, giving them general instructions and guidance, and settling points of doubt on matters of detail about which the cashier need not be troubled. There are assist- ant tellers and clerks, messengers, porters, and various employees whose number and duties are determined by the volume, charac- ter, and variety of the business of the particular bank. Though departments may be clearly defined in their main function, they come in contact at many points, and there is much passage to and fro between them.^ 1 The Modern Bank, by A. K. Fisk. D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1904. 192 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS In the small bank some of these departments may be consolidated, but the duties remain the same even when performed by fewer persons. The Paying Teller. The paying teller is provided with money to meet the ordinary demands of a day's business. When a check, usually drawn on the bank itself, is pre- sented for payment, the paying teller examines it as to genuineness of signature and as to the amount called for, and satisfies himself in regard to the identity of the person presenting the check. He stamps checks thus paid and enters them in a memorandum book. At the close of the day he foots up his entries and deducts the amount from his cash on hand in the morning. He makes a final statement of the day's transactions, turn- ing it over to the general bookkeeper. The Receiving Teller. The receiving teller is the in- dividual with whom customers deposit money or other funds. He sees that a customer's deposit slip shows clearly the amount deposited, and enters the amount in the pass book of the depositor. He also enters the name of the depositor and the amount in a blank book, which must contain all the day's transactions and agree with the amount of cash deposited. He assorts each day's deposits, doing up currency in bags or packages and stamping and listing checks. In a very large bank the receiving teller acts, as receiver only ; the details of the division are attended to by other clerks or departments. Discount Clerk. The duty of the discount clerk is to number and enter in a book, called the discount register, all loans and discounts made by the bank. He keeps a memorandum of all payments upon loans and discounts, r BANKING 193 at the close of the day giving a statement to the general bookkeeper and turning over all money received to the paying teller. In some banks these duties are performed by the note teller. Collection Clerk. The collection clerk has charge of all time drafts and notes, not payable on demand, turn- ing them over to the note teller or corresponding clerk just previous to maturity. Corresponding Clerk. The corresponding clerk keeps a record of all items to be sent away by mail, and sends them as time for payment approaches. He re- ceives remittances and passes them to the discount clerk or note teller. Mail Clerk. The mail clerk opens the mail, checks off the contents of letters, and turns over all papers to the proper officials or departments. At the close of the day's business he sees that remittances and collections from individuals and banks are acknowledged. Exchange Clerk. The exchange clerk fills out checks or drafts on other banks or bankers, has them signed by the proper officer, and receives and turns over to the proper teller all money or checks taken in payment. The Bookkeeping Department. In the banking busi- ness it is especially necessary that all transactions shall be recorded in a clear, simple, and systematic manner. Every precaution must be taken to guard against fraud or dishonesty from any source. A modern bank is com- pelled to do many things involving much clerical labor and expense and resulting in a very elaborate book- keeping system. In an especial sense the business of a bank rests upon the efficiency of its bookkeeping force. 194 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS The Head Bookkeeper. The head bookkeeper has charge of this important division of the work. He must be a skilled accountant, have executive ability, and under- stand thoroughly all details of the bank's activities. The General Bookkeeper. The " general bookkeeper " is the term applied in banks to the bookkeeper who keeps the " general ledger " of the bank, upon which, simply and accurately recorded, appear condensed results of all transactions, and the resources and liabilities of the business under their chief divisions. He keeps, also, a separate account for every bank with which business is done, a profit and loss account, and a " general state- ment" book in which balances are shown. He must also be a reliable and skilled accountant. The Auditor. In large banks there is an auditor, who reviews accounts, vouchers, and records of receipts and expenditures, and is in direct charge of the accounting department. Department of Advertising. A recent departure in some of the larger financial institutions is the estab- lishment of an advertising department which attends to all the publicity work of the various departments. By the formation of such a division better results can be obtained than when this work is handled by an officer in the bank or by some outside agency. The work of this department consists in bringing to the attention of the public the various ways in which a financial institution can serve it. The methods em- ployed in doing this are by advertising in the news- papers and financial magazines, by sending out special literature, and by personal solicitation. BANKmG 195 The Advertising Manager and his Assistants. The advertising manager, with a corps of assistants, gives his entire time to the planning and carrying out of ways and means of securing new business. The employees of such a division necessarily must have a general idea of the details of the various depart- ments in order that they may be able to explain to the public, either personally or tlirough the channels men- tioned above, any of the departments in an intelligent manner. Therefore the men selected for this work are generally those who have had experience in several departments. Pay, Positions, and Opportunities. In the lowest posi- tion in banking, that of errand boy, very young boys receive |4 and $5 a week. For regular messenger serv- ice the pay begins at |6 a week or |300 a year, increasing, on an average, at the rate of |100 a year. Young men as check tellers, clerks, bookkeepers, and bond salesmen receive from |800 to flOOO a year. The average bank employee receives about fllOO a year. Tellers, who must be responsible and able men usually of thirty years or over, have salaries ranging from 12200 upwards. Savings banks, being comparatively free from com- petition and more conservative in form, pay somewhat higher salaries and offer a better future to one who must remain in the ranks of the business. Bank officers receive high salaries because of the responsibilities involved and the abilities called for. Officers and heads of departments in banks are not always taken from the employees ; they are often 196 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS selected by the directors from their acquaintance in the business world. The Boy; Qualities and Training Required. Rarely are boys employed in the banking industry under six- teen years, which is the more general age for entering. Some banks will not employ them under nineteen years of age on account of the great responsibihty of the messenger service. Boys should be gentlemanly, neat- appearing, intelhgent, honest, businesslike, and able to concentrate their minds upon their daily work and to keep silent in regard to the bank's business when out- side the bank. The ordinary high-school education is the general re- quirement for banking. Some boys enter the business without completing the high-school course, but are con- sequently often unable to make proper advancement. Courses in business schools are desirable, and one should have fair training in mathematics and bookkeeping and be a good penman. In one bank investigated, having one hundred ninety-five employees, there were but three college graduates, one being the cashier. Banking men wish that this condition were different, but know that it is best for those who enter the occupation to do so during their minority. SUGGESTIONS FROM A BANKER TO A BOY WHO WISHES TO ENTER THIS OCCUPATION A boy who is to enter a bank should be obliging, punctual, and have a pleasing personality. Things of prime importance, also, are neatness and accuracy in figures and in handwriting. One's penmanship should be legible and rapid. BANKING 197 Naturally the boy in a bank should have good habits. The bank clerk is expected to have a high order of behavior ; he jnust not frequent saloons and pool rooms, as to do so would endanger his own standing or that of the firm by which he is employed. If you feel that you have these qualities and can meet these conditions, you may safely enter the banking business. It is dif- ficult to obtain good bank clerks and faithful and efficient bank officers in the great cities to-day. About March the first each year banks begin to increase their force on account of the coming summer vacations of their em- ployees. Banking business is so heavy and so continuous that new boys and young men must be taken in early enough to learn the duties of those whose places they will fill during vacation time. Of the new employees thus added annually those who show marked ability are retained. The boy also of fair ability and absolute trustworthiness is usually provided for. Banks very generally also employ boys from the public schools as messengers during the summer vacation. In applying for a position at a bank you should be able to refer to two or three good men as to your character. If nothing comes from the application, keep following it up, for the bank wants the boy or man who wants the place, and many apply. Take whatever is offered in position or in pay, if you want this occupation. You will be offered what others are receiving in the same place. You should know, if possible, upon entering a bank the names, nature, and principal features of ordinary business docu- ments, such as notes, checks, and bills, and something of com- mercial law. Further knowledge of business documents will come in your service in the bank. Your mathematics may well include practice in algebraic problems. Language requirements are simple, extending only to the ordinary use of English. If you obtain work in the summer vacation, or your service in the bank allows, you should later take such courses of study as arfe offered on banking by schools of administration and finance. You will thus become of greater service to the firm by which you are employed, and will more surely place yourself in line for advancement. 198 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS The Annual Report of the Comptroller of the Currency. The following tables are drawn from the annual reports of the Comptroller of the Currency, who is charged with the duty of chartering the national banks and of super- vising their operation, and with the execution of the banking laws of the United States. He makes an an- nual report to Congress which contains elaborate statis- tical tables showing the condition of national banks for the year covered by the report and giving comparable figures for previous years. The Comptroller obtains and publishes in his annual reports information, also, in regard to the various bank- ing institutions organized under the authority of the different states and territories. This information is ob- tained from state officials and other authentic sources, and is fairly complete for incorporated institutions which are generally under public supervision. Private banks and bankers are supervised in but few states, however, and the reports of the Comptroller contain statistics for only about one fourth of such banks in the country. The total returns published by the Comp- troller each year represent about eighty-three per cent of the banking capital of the United States. BANKIIsrG 199 Statistics compiled from the Reports of the United States Comptroller of the Currency FOR 1900, 1905, AND 1910 A. GROWTH IN NUMBERS OF BANKS, 1900, 1905, AND 1910 Kinds of Banks Number IN 1900 1905 1910 Per Cent of Increase, 1900-1910 National banks State banks Loan and trust companies . . Savings banks Building and loan associations i Private banks (The number reporting only) 3,617 4,369 290 1,002 5,485 989 5,858 7,794 683 1,237 5,265 1,028 7,218 9,839 1,091 1,759 5,737 934 99.6 125.2 276.2 75.5 4.6 0.62 Total numbers 15,752 21,865 26,578 68.7 B. GROWTH OF NATIONAL BANKS FROM 1900 TO 1910 Number of National Banks in Existence, Authorized Capital Stock, Bonds on Deposit to secure Circulation, Circulation secured by Bonds and by Lawful Money, ON March 14, 1900, October 31, 1905, and 1910 March 14, 1900 October 31,1905 October 31, 1910 Per Cent of Increase, 1900-1910 Number of banks . . Authorized capital . Bonds on deposit . . Circulation, on bonds Circulation, on lavrf ul money Total circulation . . 3,617 $616,308,095 244,611,570 216,374,795 38,027,935 254,402,730 5,858 $812,026,075 494,017,850 489,937,806 34,470,443 524,408,249 7,218 $1,015,897,135 694,926,070 691,335,845 33,538,463 724,874,308 99.6 64.8 184.1 219.5 13.42 184.9 ^ This includes cooperative banks in Massachusetts. 2 Decrease. 200 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS C. CHIEF ITEMS OF THE AGGREGATE RESOURCES AND LIABILITIES OF NATIONAL BANKS IN 1900, 1905, AND 1910 Resources 1900 1905 1910 Loans and discounts Bonds Cash $2,706,534,643.35 508,061,920.00 500,957,169.06 $4,016,735,497.99 561,776,080.00 622,092,079.89 $5,407,160,637.98 737,477,181.00 851,685,037.13 Total resources . . $5,412,089,692.52 $7,563,155,823.55 $9,826,181,452.36 Liabilities 1900 1905 1910 Capital stock . . . Surplus fund .... Individual deposits . $632,353,405.00 262,387,647.59 2,623,997,521.88 $808,328,658.00 420,785,055.00 3,989,522,834.51 $1,002,735,123.25 648,268,369.97 5,145,658,367.65 Total liabilities . . $5,412,089,692.52 $7,563,155,823.55 $9,826,181,452.36 D. CHIEF ITEMS OF THE AGGREGATE RESOURCES AND LIABILITIES OF STATE BANKS FOR 1910 Resources 1910 Liabilities 1910 Loans and dis- counts .... Bonds Cash. ..... $2,406,000,000.00 303,600,000.00 240,580,836.12 Capital stock . . . Surplus Individual deposits $435,822,833.58 187,571,005.45 2,727,926,986.03 Total resources . $3,694,958,766.81 Total liabilities . . $3,694,958,766.81 E. CHIEF ITEMS OF THE AGGREGATE RESOURCES AND LIABILITIES OF LOAN AND TRUST COMPANIES IN 1910 Resources 1910 Liabilities 1910 Loans and dis- counts .... Bonds Cash $2,565,729,106.24 1,000,263,549.84 260,129,890.91 Capital stock . . . Surplus Individual deposits $367,333,556.37 432,718,233.98 3,073,122,706.20 Total resources . $4,216,850,061.52 Total liabilities . . $4,216,850,061.52 BANKING 201 F. NUMBER OF SAVINGS BANKS IN THE UNITED STATES, NUMBER OF DEPOSITORS, AMOUNT OF SAVINGS DEPOSITS, AVERAGE AMOUNT DUE EACH DEPOSITOR, AND AVER- AGE PER CAPITA IN THE UNITED STATES, 1900-1910 Average Year Number OF Banks Number OF De- positors Deposits AVERACxE Due Each Depositor PER Capita IN THE United States 1900 . . . 1002 6,107,083 $2,449,547,885 $401.10 $31.78 1901 . 1007 6,358,723 2,597,094,580 408.30 33.45 1902 . 1036 6,666,672 2,750,177,290 412.53 34.89 1903 . 1078 7,035,228 2,935,204,845 417.21 36.52 1904 . 1157 7,305,443 3,060,178,611 418.89 37.52 1905 . 1237 7,696,229 3,261,236,119 423.74 39.17 1906 . 1319 8,027,192 3,482,137,198 433.79 41.13 1907 . 1415 8,588,811 3,690,078,945 429.64 42.87 1908 . 1453 8,705,848 3,660,553,945 420.47 41.84 1909 . 1703 8,831,863 3,713,405,710 420.45 41.75 1910 . 1759 9,142,908 4,070,486,246 445.20 45.05 Other Forms of Business. The great lines of business employments treated in the several parts of this book are inclusive and typical of the few forms not yet named or considered at length. The difference, for instance, between wholesale and retail trade is plain. The re- tailer sells to the consumer ; the wholesaler, to the mid- dleman, jobber, or to the retailer. Wholesale business offers fewer positions than retail, but in general these positions are more permanent and more highly paid. Business ability, however, in all lines is sought after and usually adequately rewarded. Along with the man- ufacturing and mechanical pursuits we have mining, quarrying, and fishing. Agriculture, also, is classed with the same group, as in the statistical tables presented in 202 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS this volume. It stands at the head of the Hst, as shown in dair3dng, in the number of persons employed upon its business side. In connection with manufacture we have a quite distinct group called the building trades, with the following major divisions, carpentering, ma- sonry, painting, paper hanging, plastering, plumbing, roofing and slating, each with its offices and business employees. Other occupations, also, whose nature is chiefly that of business, are presented in the statistics at the end of Part II. Some of these are real estate; life, property, or other insurance ; private and public corporations, such as the railroad and street railway, telegraph and telephone ; the great field of the business side of institutional work ; public service and civic service, such as the business of towns and cities, of county government and the state, and of the national government. BIBLIOGRAPHY Barnett, George E. State Banks and Trust Companies since the Passage of the National Bank Act. Report of the National Monetary Commission, 1911. Barrett, Alfred R. Modern Banking Methods. Bankers' Publishiiig Co., New York, 1903. Beach, Elmer Henry, and Others, Compilers. The American Business and Accounting Encyclopedia. The Bookkeeper Publishing Co., Detroit, Mich., 1901. Bentley, Harry Clark. The Science of Accounts. The Ron- ald Press Co., New York, 1911. Beveridge, W. H. Unemployment. A Problem of Industry. Longmans, Green, & Co., London, 1912. Bolles, Albert S. Money, Banking, and Finance. American Book Company, New York, 1903. Bolles, Albert S. The National Bank Act. Homans Publish- ing Co., New York, 1888. Bolles, Albert S. Practical Banking. Homans Publishing Co., New York, 1888. Brandeis, Louis D. Business — a Profession. With a Foreword by Ernest Poole. Small, Maynard & Company, Boston, 1914. Calkins and Holder. Modern Advertising. D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1907. Casson, Herbert Newton. Ads and Sales. A Study of Adver- tising and Selling from the Standpoint of the New Principles of Scientific Management. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1911. Cherington, Paul Terry. Advertising as a Business Force. Doubleday, Page & Company, New York, 1913. Coffin, George M. The A B C of Banks and Banking. Nelson's Wall Street Library, Vol. IV, 1903, 203 204 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Cole, William Morse. Accounts. Their Construction and . Interpretation for Business Men and Students of Aifairs. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1908. CoRBiON, William Amelius. The Principles of Salesmanship, Deportment, and System. A Textbook for Department Store Service. George W. Jacobs & Company, Philadelphia, 1907. Daly, John J. The Window Dresser. Bookseller and News- man, New York, 1899. Dean, Arthur D. The Worker and the State. The Century Co., New York, 1910. Defebaugh, James Elliott. History of the Lumber Industry of America. The American Lumberman, Chicago, 1906-1907. Dickinson, Arthur Lowes. Accounting : Practice and Pro- cedure. The Ronald Press Co., New York, 1914. Drysdale, William. Helps for Ambitious Boys. Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York. Dunbar, Charles F. Chapters on the Theory and History of Banking. Edited by O. M. W. Sprague. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1904. Dyke, Andrew Lee. Dyke's Automobile Encyclopedia. Dyke, St. Louis, Mo., 1911. Eaton, James Shirley. Education for Efficiency in Railroad Service. (United States Bureau of Education. Bulletin^ 1909^ No. 10. Whole Number 420.) Washington, 1909. Eaton, James Shirley. Handbook of Railroad Expenses. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1913. Farrington, Frank. Store Management. Byxbee Publishing Co., Chicago, 1911. FiSK, A. K. The Modern Bank. D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1904. Frank, Robert John. Commentary on the Science of Organ- ization and Business Development. Chicago Commercial Pub- lishing Company, Chicago, 1911. Garner, Wightman Fells. The Present Status of the Tobacco Industry. (Bureau of Plant Industry, United States Depart- ment of Agriculture. Circular No. 48.) Washington, 1910. Gilbreth, Frank B. Primer of Scientific Management. D. Van Nostrand Company, New York, 1912. BIBLIOGRAPHY 205 GiLBRETH, L. M. The Psychology of Management. Sturgis & Walton Company, New York, 1914. GoLDMARK, Josephine A. Fatigue and Efficiency. The Survey Publishing Co., New York, 1912. HiGGiNBOTHAM, Harlow N. The Making of a Merchant. Forbes & Company, Chicago, 1906. HoLLiNGWORTH, Harry Levi. Advertising and Selling. Prin- ciples of Appeal and Response. D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1913. HoYT, Charles Wilson. Scientific Sales Management. Wool- son & Co., New Haven, Conn., 1913. Hungerford, Edward. The Modern Railroad. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1911. Kimball, Dexter Simpson. The Principles of Industrial Organ- ization. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1913. KiRKBRiDGE, F. B., and Sterrett, J. E. The Modern Trust Company : its Functions and Organization. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1905. Marshall, Alfred. Economics of Industry. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1896. Mathewson, Ernest H. Tobacco Marketing in the United States. (Bureau of Plant Industry, United States Department of Agriculture. Bulletin No. 268.) Washington, 1913. Montgomery, Robert H. The American Business Manual, a Complete Guide to Modern Systems and Practice. P. F. Collier & Son, New York, 1911. Moody, Walter D. Men who Sell Things. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1908. Neystrom, Paul H. Retail Selling and Store Management. D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1914. Parkhurst, Frederic A. Applied Methods of Scientific Man- agement. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1912. Parson, Frank Alvah. The Principles of Advertising Arrange- ment. The Prang Co., New York, 1912. Parton, James. Captains of Industry. Houghton Mifflin Com- pany, Boston, 1891. Patten, Claudius B. Practical Banking. Bradford Rhodes & Co., New York, 1902. 206 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Phillips, Wesley B. How Department Stores are Carried on in America. Richards, London, 1907. Pierce, Carl H. Scientific Salesmanship. Holder & Motley, New York, 1906. Redfield, William C. The New Industrial Day. The Century Co., New York, 1912. Robinson, Humphrey. A Simple Explanation of Modern Bank- ing Customs. Edited by W. Overton Harris. Small, Maynard & Company, Boston, 1910. Scott, Walter Dill. Increasing Human Efficiency in Business, a Contribution to the Psychology of Business. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1911. Scott, Walter Dill. Influencing Men in Business. The Psy- chology of Argument and Suggestion. The Ronald Press Co., New York, 1911. Slater, John Arthur. Pitman's Business Man's Guide. A Handbook for all Engaged in Business. Pitman & Sons, Ltd., London, 1909. Sparling, Samuel E. Management, an Introduction to Busi- ness Organization. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1909. Stone, Geoffrey de Holden. The Automobile Industry. Methuen & Co., London, 1904. Storm, Donald T. Fifty Lessons in Advertising. The Boot and Shoe Recorder Publishing Co., Boston, 1911. Strong, Charles J. The Art of Show Card Writing. Detroit School of Lettering, Detroit, Mich., 1907. Taylor, Frederick Winslow. The Principles of Scientific Management. Harper & Brothers. New York, 1911. Thompson, Clarence Bertrand, Compiler. Readings in Scien- tific Management. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1914. Thwing, C. F. College Training and the Business Man. D. Ap- pleton and Company, New York, 1904. White, Horace. Money and Banking. Ginn and Company, Boston, 1911. White, Thomas Raeburn. Business Law. Introduction by Roland P. Falkner. Silver, Burdett & Company, New York, 1900. BIBLIOGRAPHY 207 Wilder, F. W. The Modern Packing-house. Nickerson & Col- lins Co., Chicago, 1905. Accountancy and the Business Professions. High School Teach- ers' Association, New York City. Digest of the National Bank Act. Edition of 1907. A. S. Pratt & Sons, Washington. Educational Training Course. Retail Shoe Salesmen's Guide. The Arthur L. Evans Co., Boston, 1912. How to Dress a Shoe Store Window. The Boot and Shoe Recorder Publishing Co., Boston, 1908. Pennsylvania Annual Report of the Secretary of Internal Affairs. Part III. Industrial Statistics, 1912. William Stanley Ray, State Printer, Harrisburg, Pa., 1914. The Commercial and Financial Chronicle. Banking Supple- ment. New York. The Credit Man and his Work. Bookkeeper Publishing Co., Detroit, Mich., 1904. What Constitutes a good Salesman. A Series of Prize Essays Written by Shoe Clerks. Unemployment. A Problem of Industry. American Association for Labor Legislation. American Labor Legislation Review, Vol. IV, No. 2, New York, May, 1914. The Advertisers' Cyclopedia. Brains Corporation. Scranton, Pa., 1909. The Business Man's Brain Partners; including the Business Man's Encyclopedia, etc. Compiled by twenty-seven experts. The System Co., Chicago, 1910. The Business Man's Library. The System Co., Chicago, 1910. Vol. 1, Credits and Collections. Vol. 2, Business Correspondence. Vol. 3, Cost of Production. Vol. 4, Book on Selling. Vol. 5, Book on Buying. Vol. 6, Organization of a Factory. Vol. 7, Book on Advertising. Vol. 8, Employer and Employee. Vol. 9, Personality in Business. Vol. 10, Accounting and Office Methods. 208 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Cyclopedia of Commerce, Accountancy, Business Administration. James Bray Griffith. American Technical Society, Chicago, 1910. The Thirteenth Census of the United States. Publications of the Department of Commerce and Labor of the United States. The Annual Reports of the Comptroller of the Currency. Reports of the United States Commissioner of Corporations. BUSINESS AND TRADE JOURNALS Advertising and Selling. New York. American Banker. New York. American Carpenter and Builder. Chicago. American Cloak and Suit Review. New York. American Hay, Flour, and Feed Journal. New York. American Industries. New York. American Lumberman. Chicago. American Motor News. San Francisco. American Pressman. Cincinnati, Ohio. American Silk Journal. New York. American Stone Trade. Chicago. American Sugar Industry. Chicago. American Wool and Cotton Reporter. Boston. Apparel Gazette. Los Angeles, Cal. Bakers' and Confectioners' Review. Los Angeles, Cal. Brains. The National Weekly for Retailers and Advertisers. Scranton, Pa. Building Age. New York. Bulletin of Pharmacy. Detroit, Mich. Business. Detroit, Mich. Business and the Bookkeeper. Detroit, Mich. Business Philosopher. Libertyville, 111. Butchers' Advocate and Market Journal. New York. Butchers' and Packers' Gazette. St. Louis, Mo. Carriage and Wagon Builder and American Vehicle. Philadelphia. Commercial America. Philadelphia. Commercial and Financial World. New York. Confectioners' Journal. Philadelphia. Cotton. Atlanta, Ga. Cotton and Cotton Oil News. Dallas, Tex. Cotton Trade Journal. Savannah, Ga. 209 210 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Craftsman. New York. Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal. Philadelphia. Electric Journal. Pittsburgh, Pa. Electrical World. New York. Engineering and Mining Journal. New York. Factory. Chicago. Fibre and Fabric. Boston. Furniture Industry. Evansville, Ind. Implement Trade Journal. Kansas City, Mo. Industrial World. Pittsburgh, Pa. Inland Printer. Chicago. Iron Age. New York. Keith's Magazine. Minneapolis, Minn. Live Stock and Dairy Journal. Sacramento, Cal. Merchants' and Manufacturers' Journal. Baltimore, Md. Merchant's Trade Journal. Des Moines, Iowa. Metal Industry. New York. Metal Worker, Plumber, and Steam Fitter. New York. Mid-west Industrial Journal. Shoshoni, Wyo. Mining World. Chicago. Modern Methods. Detroit, Mich. Motor Age. Chicago. National Builder. Chicago. News Bureau. Boston. Practical Dairyman. Paterson, N. J. Printers' Ink. New York. Progressive Retailer. Atlanta, Ga. Public Service. Chicago. Railroad Trainman. Cleveland, Ohio. Railway Carmen's Journal. Kansas City, Mo. Southwestern Grain and Flour Journal. Wichita, Kan. System. Chicago. Textile Manufacture. Charlotte, N.C. The Business Educator. Columbus, Ohio. The Business Monthly. Pittsburgh, Pa. The Business World. New York. The Drygoodsman and General Merchant. St. Louis, Mo. The Financial Age. New York. BUSINESS AND TKADE JOURNALS 211 The Journal of Accountancy. New York. The Nation's Business. Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America. Washington, D.C. The New England Grocer and Tradesman. Boston. The Salesman. San Francisco. The Trade Review. New York. Typographical Journal. Indianapolis, Ind. The Young Man in Business. Richmond, Va. Wall Street Journal. New York. Western Trade Journal. Chicago. For special articles consult indexes to periodical literature. INDEX Accountant, the, 12, 194 Accounting room, the, 139 Advance information, depart- ment of, 74 ; positions in de- partment of, 75 Advancement, actual cases of, 141, 169-171 Advertising, 119 ; general, 54 ; local, 55 Advertising department, the, 143, 194 ; positions in, 56, 144 ; na- ture of, 143 ; the modern trend of, 143 ; divisions in, 144 ; dia- gram of, 145 ; important assist- ant positions in, 145 ; the boy in, 146 ; work producing ad- vertising men, 147 Advertising manager, the, 56, 195 ; assistant,' 56 Application forms, 26-28 Art department, the, 55 Assistant to the president, 18 Attendant business, enlargement of, 7 Auditing department, the, 139 Auditor, the, 14, 15, 194 Balance sheet, a typical, 46, 48, 49 Bank work, departments of, 191 Banking, 187-202 ; nature, divi- sions, and future of, 187-190 ; pay, positions, and opportuni- ties in, 195 ; the boy in, quali- ties and training required, 196 ; suggestions from a banker to a boy who wishes to enter, 196 Bibliography, 203-208 Bookkeeper, the, 141 ; the head, 194 ; the general, 194 Bookkeeping department, the, in manufacture, 45 ; positions in. 46 ; in the department store, 141 ; in banking, 193 Building and loan association, 187 Bundle boy, the, 130 Business, stock and bond, 188, 190 ; other forms of, 201 Business and trade journals, 209- 211 Business departments in fac- tories, other, 67 Business offices, training and promotion in, 69 Buyer, the, 124 ; assistant, 125 Buying, the division of, 123 ; po- sitions in the division of, 124 Cash boy, the, 130 Cashier, the, 191 ; assistant, 191 Cashier's office, the, 139 Census, the Thirteenth, 91 ; ear- lier censuses, 92 ; the figures in manufacture for 1909, 92 ; the increase from 1899 to 1909, 92 ; comparison of earnings on the business side and on the man- ufacturing side, 93 ; the prob- able increase since 1909, 94 Census statistics, 91 ; explanation of, 94-96 ; industrial statistics and business opportunities, 96 ; value of products, by indus- tries, 1909 and 1899, 97; Table I, continental United States and noncontiguous territory, 1909, 98; Table II, general comparison for the United States, 1909, 1904, and 1899, 99 ; Table III, comparison with earlier censuses, 100 ; ac- companying statement, 101 ; ■ manufacturing centers of the 213 214 BUSmESS EMPLOYMENTS United States, 102 ; per cent distribution of average number of wage earners, by industries, 1909, 103; Table IV, list of the states according to num- bers of wage earners in manu- facture, 1909, 104; Table V, list of leading cities in the United States according to numbers of wage earners in manufacture, 1909, 105; Table VI, distribution according to size of communities, 106; Table VII, summary of persons en- gaged in manufacture in the United States, 1909, 107; Table VIII, comparison of occupa- tional status of 1904 and 1909, 108; Table IX, number and proportion of persons in the general divisions of occupa- tions. Number and per cent of distribution, U. S. census, 1910, 178 ; Table X, number and proportion of persons in the general divisions of occupa- tions. Number and per cent of distribution by decades, 1880- 1910, 179; Table XI, distribu- tion by general divisions of persons 10 years of age and over engaged in gainful occu- pations, by divisions and states, 1910. Trade and transporta- tion, 180, 181 ; Table XII, number of persons 10 years of age and over engaged in speci- fied occupations. Arranged ac- cording to the classification of 1900, for both sexes and for each sex separately, 1880-1910, 132, 183 ; A^ growth in num- bers of banks, 1900, 1905, and 1910, 199; B, growth of na- tional banks from 1900 to 1910, 199 ; C, chief items of the aggregate resources and liabil- ities of national banks in 1900, 1905, and 1910, 200 ; i), chief items of the aggregate re- sources and liabilities of state banks for 1910 ; E, chief items of the aggregate resources and liabilities of loan and trust companies in 1910, 200 ; F, number of savings banks in the United States, number of depositors, amount of savings deposits, average amount due each depositor, and average per capita in the United States, 1900-1910, 201 Charge-account bookkeeping, the, 139 Charts, the use of, 9 Checking department, the, 83 ; positions in, 83 Civil War, the, 66, 67 C. O. D. division, the, 139 Collecting agency, the, 141 Collection clerk, the, 193 Collection department, the, 46 Commercial positions, number of, 8 Comptroller of the currency, an- nual report of, 198; statistics compiled from the reports of, 199-201 Construction, the division of supply and, 131 Copy writer, the, 145 Corporation, secretary to the, 17 Correspondence department, the, 44 ; positions in, 45 Corresponding clerk, the, 193 Cost department, the, 86 Credit and collection depart- ment, the, 46, 138 ; positions in, 46 Credit department, the, 41, 46 ; manager of, 47 Day sheet, the, 43 ; the cutting- room portion of a typical, 43, 44 Delivery system, the, 132 ; posi- tions in, 132 Department store, the, 113 ; na- ture of, 113 ; from the public point of view, 114 ; the rise of, 116; competition, 117; future INDEX 215 of, 117 ; mode of treatment of, in this study, 118 ; chart of or- ganization of, 119 ; four major divisions of, 119 ; additional activities of, 176 ; summary of positions in, 172-175; positions not limited to, 176 Directors, the board of, 15, 190 ; chairman of the board of, 17 Discount clerk, the, 192 Dispatch department, the, 76 ; the day-sheet section of, 77 ; the tracing section of, 78 ; po- sitions in, 78 Display rooms, the, 56 Educational department, the, 131 ; office of, 156 ; director of, 158 Efficiency bulletins, 155 Efficiency department, the, 78- 80 ; positions in, 80 Efficiency engineer, the, 19 Efficiency expert, the profes- sional, 20 Efficiency manager, the, 19 Efficiency records, 156 Efficiency work, example of a firm conducting, 79 ; a con- servative view of, 79 Employees, as stockholders, 14 ; the hiring, transferring, and discharge of, 25 ; secured by advertising, 26 ; typical regu- lations for, 30-33 ; training of, 33 ; seasonal increase and de- crease in number of, in depart- ment stores, 148 ; the relative divisions of, in department stores, 151 ; pay and promotion of, in department stores, 161, 164-167 ; suggestions from an employer to young persons, 161-163 ; some qualities re- quired in, 163 Employment or labor depart- ment, the, 13, 25 ; methods of, 26; a division of, 33; positions in, 34, 129; a central office for, 34 ; office of, 129 ; manager of, 34, 130 ; the problem of, 37 Exchange clerk, the, 193 Executive committee, the, 15 Executive offices, the, 25; employ- ment opportunities in, 25 Executive officers, the, of a cor- poration, 14 ; requirements for, 23 ; salaries of, 24 ; of a bank, 190, 191 Expense, the division of, 131 ; positions in the division of, 131 Expense department, the, 86 Expense man, the, 131 Expense manager, the, 86, 87 Factory apprentice course, 70 Factory offices, the, 71-74 ; chart of, 73 ; requirements for serv- ice in, 90 Factory physician, the, 88, 90 Fatigue, influences making for, 150 Federal Reserve Act, the, 189 Federal reserve banks, 187, 189 Floor boy, the, 130 Floor clerk, the, 130, 135 Floor manager, the, 135 Floor superintendent, . the, 130, 135 ; topics treated in lecture by, 155 Furrier, the, 176 General manager, the, 14, 16, 120 General offices, the, 39 ; chart of, 40 ; requirements for service in, 68 General superintendent, the, 14, 129, 133 Government investigation, quota- tion from a, 171 Head of a concern, the responsi- bility of, 19 Hospital, the, 88 Industrial counselor, the, 38 Industrial development expert, the, 38 Industrial service, 88 Industrial-service department, the, 13, 89 ; positions in, 89 216 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Industries, the manufacturing, 6, 91 ; sex and age distribution by, 108; statistics in, 91, 94- 96, 97-99, 100-108, 178-183, 199-201 Industry, runs to big enterprises, 9 ; dissecting an, 9 ; the shoe, 10 Information bureau, the, 151 Information ofl&ce, the, 68 Invention, era of active, 6 Job room, the, 53 Labor, the supply of, 35 ; the turn-over of, 36 Labor department, the, 25 Line organization, 21 ; chartof , 11 Mail clerk, the, 193 Mailing department, the, 57 ; positions in, 57 Mail-order department, the, 132 ; positions in, 132 Managers, the board of, 121 Manufacture, the nature of, 91 ; organization in, 8 ; chart of organization in, 11 ; organiza- tion in shoe, 12 ; the percent- age of persons on the business side of, 12, 107, 109 Manufacturing corporation, the, 14 ; executive officers of, 14 Marking room, the, 123 ; posi- tions in, 123 Merchandise, departments of, 120 Merchandise conferences, 156 Merchandise department, the, 122 ; diagram of, 127 ; the boy in, 127 Merchandise manager, the, 125 ; assistant, 126 Merchandising, 119, 122 Messenger service, the, 37, 69, 87, 189 ; promotion from, 87 Mill agent, the, 16 National Bank Act, the, 187 National banks, 187 Office department, the, 138 ; na- ture of, 138 ; simple divisions of, 138 ; diagram of, 140 ; posi- tions in, in the highly organized store, 140 ; the boy in, 142 Office manager, the, 39, 44 Office work, divisions of, in the highly organized store, 138 Order department, the, 41 ; posi- tions in, 44 Order form, 42 Orders, the receipt and handling of, 41 Paying teller, the, 192 Payment department, the, 139 Pay-roll department, the, 83 Physical conditions, 150 Physical director, the, 90 Post-office station, the, 151 President, the, of a corporation, 14, 15 ; of a department store, 120, 172; of a bank, 190 Publicity department, the, 53 ; positions in, 56 Publicity manager, the, 144 Purchase-records department, the, 139 Purchasing agent, the, 51 Purchasing department, the, 50 ; positions in, 51 Raw material, 7; office or depart- ment of, 80 Receiving department, the, 52 ; positions in, 53 Receiving room, the, 122 ; posi- tions in, 122 Receiving teller, the, 192 Record cards, employee's 29, 30, 33 ; employee's w^eekly, 84 ; pieceworker's, 85 Recording, 119 Records of business transactions, 8 Refund desk, the, 151 Requisition form, a typical, 82 Returned-goods department, the, 122 INDEX 21T Sales department, the, 58 ; posi- tions in, 60 ; a statistical divi- sion in, 60 Sales manager, the, 14, 47, 61 ; assistant, 60 Sales people, 130, 134-137, 151, 155 Salesmanship, requirements for successful, 135 ; diagram of requirements for, 136 ; the school of, 154 ; class work in the school of, 154 Sample department or rooms, the, 60 Savings banks, 187, 188, 190 Schedule department, the, 82 ; positions in, 82 School enrollment in outside courses, 156 Scientific management, 21 Seasonal changes, diagram of, 149 Seasonal increase in trade, 148, 149 Secretary, the, of a manufactur- ing corporation, ] 4 ; to the president, 17 ; to the corpora- tion, 17 ; of a modern business house, 120, 172 Selling department, the, 129 ; positions in, 130 ; the boy in, 136 ; basis of pay in, 137 Service, conditions of, 148 ; hours of, 148 ; competition in, 151 ; where the way divides in, 151 Shipper, the head, 132 Shoe industry, the, 10 ; chart of organization in, 11 ; oppor- tunities for many kinds of employment in, 12 " Silent salesman," the, 59 Social features, in the factory, 88-90 ; in the department store, 156-160 ; a mutual-aid association, 157 ; an insurance or mutual-benefit association, 157 ; a savings-deposit system for employees, 157 ; a medical department, 157 ; the lecture committee, 157 ; the library committee, 157; the suggestion committee, 157 ; the entertain- ment committee, 157 ; the club-house committee, 158 ; the music committee, 158 ; a store paper, 158 ; workers in this division, 158 ; a sample daily club report, 158-160 Social-service work, 153-160 ; nature of, 153 ; three lines of opportunity in, 154 Special schedule, the, 43 Staff organization, 21 ; chart of, 22 Standard Oil Company, the, 12 State banks, 187, 188 Statistical department, the, 140 Statistics. See Census statistics Stenographic department, the, 45 Stock, the care of, 135 Stock exchange, the, 188 Stock force, the, 130 Stock room, the, 123 ; positions in, 123 Stockholders, 14 Stock-record department, the, 140 Store detective, the, 176 Store management, diagram of, 133, 134, Store manager, the, 129, 133 ; advice from a, 168 Store managing, 119 Store organizations, consolidated daily report of, 158-160 Store superintendent, the, 133 Superintending, 129 ; divisions and positions in, 129 ; the more important positions and fea- tures of, 132 Supply and construction, the division of, 131 ; positions in the division of, 131 Supply department, the, 81 ; posi- tions in, 82 Tabulating system, the, 77 Tag department, the, 75 ; the foreman's tag, 75, 76 ; posi- tions in, 76 218 BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS Trade, seasonal increase in, 148 Trq,ining, educational, 154, 164 ; administrative, 155 ; required for banking, 196 Traveling salesman, the, 61 ; educational or other require- ments for, 62 ; a typical quota- tion on the general work of, 62 ; advantages of, 63 ; pay and routine of, 63 ; disadvantages in the life of, 65; rise of the modern, 66 Treasurer, the, of a manufactur- ing corporation, 14, 15 ; of a modern business house, 120, 172; of a bank, 190 Trust companies, 187, 188 Tube system, the, 130 United States, the, a manufac- turing nation, 6 ; dealers in a single line in, 58. See also Census statistics University-extension courses, 156 Upper-leather ofl&ce, the, 80 ; positions in, 81 Vacation, 150 Vocation, choice of, like making an investment, 5 Vocational guidance, 156 Vocational opportunities, in manufacturing, 12, 13, 69 ; in the department store, 152-156 Welfare manager, the, 89, 158 Welfare work, 150, 153-160 Women in department-store serv- ice, 151, 171, 172 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. NOV 1019^'' JAN 3 1 1948 MAY 13 1948 RARY USE f 2 31957 REC'D EBJ M4J 23 1:. LD 21-100OT-12,*46(A2012si6)4120 I L_^ \-y \_> v^ I 355212 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY '"^^w^