To enter the job market in the middle of World War IInwas a heady experience. In the year or two followingnPearl Harbor nearly ten million young men had donnednuniforms, and employers were crying for help. The onlynlarge reservoir left to be tapped was women. Rosie thenRiveter was born. For college graduates, white-collar jobsnheretofore closed to women were to be had, although notnquite for the asking.nBetty Goldstein (not yet Friedan) graduated from SmithnCollege at this time—1942 — and embarked on a careernthat would lead to the writing of The Feminine Mystique anquarter century later. Betty and I were very good friends atnSmith. I was a sophomore reporter and she the editor-inchiefnof SCAN, the college newspaper. Our SCAN experiencenhad whetted our appetites for journalism — “thennewspaper racket,” as we racily called it—and that’s wherenwe hoped to land jobs upon graduation. Not for us thenWoman’s Page with its fusty coverage of fashion, food,nbridge, and other despised foofrous. We would be realnnewsmen covering real news. So with a brand new diplomanin hand, and Hildy Johnson dreams in my heart, I set out fornthe Big City — New York in those days was everyone’sndream, and a Greenwich Village apartment an attainablenpossibility. A SCAN friend, now working at AP, called withnthe exciting news that a job as copy girl had just opened upnat United Press (as UPI, United Press International, wasnPriscilla L. Buckley is a senior editor at National Review.nVIEWSnCoUitchgirlnWorking for United Press in the 40’snby Priscilla L. Buckleynthen known), and that I should call Phil Newsom, the radionnews manager.nNothing could discourage me. Not the job description:ncopy girls and boys ran errands, brought in coffee, changednthe rolls on the huge teletype machines, did anything thatnanyone at any level asked them to do. There were nonweekends. You worked five days a week, not necessarilynconsecutive days, on three shifts: day, afternoon, andnovernight. The pay was $18.50 a week.nI didn’t get the job. It had just been filled, but as it turnednout it was nearly as quickly unfilled. At week’s end antelegram informed me that if still interested I should reportnfor work at 9 A.M. the following Monday. With gaynabandon I tossed aside a second job I had landed (also tonstart the following Monday) at $35 a week as a junior editornat The Book of Knowledge, the children’s encyclopedia, andnopted for UP, starvation wages, and a wonderful life. To getna job in the news field in those days you filled out a briefnform — name, age, education, family, place of birth, citizenship,nprevious work experience (none) — and were thenninterviewed by the person for whom you would be working.nResumes were a thing of the future. The only hitch was thatnevery woman hired had to sign a release agreeing to vacatenher job when the man who had held it before her returnednfrom the service.nSpeak of nervous stomachs. The UP newsroom on then12th floor of the Daily News Building in New York was atnthe time the largest newsroom in the world: several hundrednnnOCTOBER 1989/11n