LETTER FROM PHILO REMINGTON TO GENERAL FRANCIS E. SPINNER, WRITTEN JUNE 5, 1875, ON ONE OF THE FIRST TYPEWRITERS. ORIGINAL IN REMINGTON HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
STATUE OF GENERAL FRANCIS E. SPINNER AT HERKIMER, N.Y., ERECTED BY THE WOMEN OF THE DEPARTMENTS OF THE GOVERNMENT. NOTE THE INSCRIPTION ON THE PEDESTAL.
The fact that
I was instrumental
in introducing women to employment in the
offices of the Government
gives me more real satisfaction
than all the other deeds of my life
F. E. Spinner.
Obviously it was the business world, and that alone, which could furnish women with the opportunity for real emancipation, and so long as this door remained closed, there could be no hope of its attainment.
The prejudice which existed fifty years ago against the employment of women in a business office, or in clerical capacities of any kind, is something which in our day is hard to understand. It was blind and unreasoning, as prejudices usually are, but it was universal. How strong it was, and how unreasoning, was clearly shown in the one notable attempt to utilize the services of women in clerical work, which came before the advent of the typewriter.
It is a singular fact that this attempt was made by a native and life-long resident of Herkimer County, a forecast of the part that other native sons of Herkimer County were yet to play in the great work of sex emancipation.
This man was General Francis Elias Spinner, born in Mohawk, N.Y., a suburb of Ilion, and a close friend of Philo Remington. General Spinner was appointed Treasurer of the United States by President Lincoln on March 16, 1861, and continued to hold this office until June 30, 1875. When he took up his official duties at Washington, he found a condition similar to the one with which all of us were recently familiar during the Great War. The men had gone to war in such vast numbers that there was everywhere a scarcity of workers, and General Spinner conceived the idea of employing women as government clerks. This was a startling innovation in those days; nevertheless several hundred women were appointed to government clerkships through his agency.