Shutterbugs: Katie and Her Camera and Sharon James, Freelance Photographer

Katie And Her Camera (1955, Lois Hobart)

The Story: Dad has died and Katie has to get a job in order to finish college (a weak or absent patriarch is always a good excuse for a career). Inexperienced Katie applies for a part-time job as assistant to photographer Rolfe Esperson, who not only hires her but proceeds to teach her everything he knows, loans her his equipment, and pays her to boot. At one point he says she looks worn out and gives her a hundred dollars with instructions to go on Continue reading

The Wonderful World of Work

Maureen Corrigan, in her review of recent novels about the unemployed, started by saying that historically “the workaday world…has been considered too mundane to be of much interest.”  Poor Maureen–another otherwise well-read person completely unaware of the world of Career Girl books. I’m talking about books like Betty Loring, Illustrator (1948), Patti Lewis, Home Economist (1956), and A Flair for People (1955–the heroine is a personnel director). Despite growing up with the Beany Malone books (which she analyzes in her memoir Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading, Maureen somehow missed out on books like Date With A Career (1958), and Phoebe’s First Campaign (1963). Continue reading