stenographer

“A stenographer was a new job, and it led to women joining the workforce—though many only remained employed until they got married,” says Gershon.

Pen-and-ink clerks who struggled to top 20 words a minute were displaced by typists who could top 60 wpm, especially if they used new touch-typing techniques pioneered by a Cincinnati stenographer, Elizabeth Longley.

At best, the White House press corps acts as stenographers, taking down what the administration spits out and regurgitating it for an increasingly misinformed electorate.

“Then I started writing. I got my big stack of index cards and sorted through them, and there the characters were. There were their stories. I was basically a stenographer.”

He would shake hands with the entire crew if the interview was on camera, and there would often be an embrace for the stenographers busily transcribing his thoughts.