Issue link: https://alabamapower.uberflip.com/i/842772
From Alabama Power's beginning, women worked in the corporate and, later, district offices and at power generation sites of the company. They routinely held support or clerical jobs – answered the telephone, ran errands, typed letters, responded to correspondence, filed reports, made coffee, brought fresh-baked goodies from home, and generally saw that important and little things happened. Alabama Power's founding father, Thomas Wesley Martin, had a male private secretary, which was not unusual for that day. Since he was a workaholic, Martin often completed tasks in his suite on the train traveling between Alabama and Washington, D.C., or New York City. Martin's secretary carried a portable typewriter, a briefcase with stationery, envelopes, a supply of stamps and extra typewriter ribbons. Letters might be mailed when the train pulled into a station. Propriety, however, decreed that Martin should not be traveling in a train suite with a woman who was not his wife. With the beginning of World War I, more women moved into Alabama Power employment, especially when men left for military duty. However, after peace came, the small employment gains for women were generally lost as soldiers arrived home and claimed the jobs they had left. In the 1920s, Alabama Power continued to expand its generation, transmission and distribution capacity, and the nation moved into the Jazz Age, an economic boom period. The development and manufacture of more electrical appliances made cooking, food preservation, ironing and cleaning easier for housewives. The largest-selling appliance for Alabama Power was the electric iron. It was also the most economical, and was perhaps the one most connected to men – the accurate heating temperature prevented many brown scorches on their white shirts that were frequent with irons that were heated on a wood- burning stove. With the increasing importance of kitchen appliances sales to Alabama Power's bottom line and the related larger demand for electricity, the company began to recruit more women, many of them home economics graduates. They would travel the state, usually by train, to give demonstrations in local Alabama Power offices. Rooms with elevated platforms and space for appliance displays allowed female customers the opportunity to select an appliance and learn how to use it. Much later, furniture stores began to display and sell electric appliances. Presentations by Alabama Power's female sales force 43 HISTORY