Why was a Paperboy far more common than a Papergirl? (1950s)
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Back when Paperboys were still a thing why was it far more common to see boys doing it than girls? Seems like a girl could stand giving out papers or riding a bike delivering them as well as a boy could.
Back when Paperboys were still a thing why was it far more common to see boys doing it than girls? Seems like a girl could stand giving out papers or riding a bike delivering them as well as a boy could.
My husband grew up in the largest city in his state. Until a prominent attorney sued the newspaper owners back in the 1970s the newspaper refused to hire girls. Even after that I suspect that for every girl newspaper carrier there were 99 boy carriers.
The morning paper needed to be delivered before 6 AM so I theorize that they felt that it was a safety issue for young girls to be out on their own in the dark. In addition, they probably felt that the weight of the newspapers would be too heavy for girls.
Back when Paperboys were still a thing why was it far more common to see boys doing it than girls? Seems like a girl could stand giving out papers or riding a bike delivering them as well as a boy could.
My sister was a paper girl. I had the corner on the neighborhood babysitting market, but she wasn't interested in taking care of kids and took a paper route instead.
We had a paper boy for a while that wheeled a cart-like thing through the neighborhood and it was often dark when he was going down the street (1950s). We had ice cream vendors (boys) with pushcarts. Never had a girl for either.
I think there was a papergirl among us when I went to pick up papers at the local post office for delivery, didn't pay too much attention. Looking back on it, I had the hardest route in town and few girls would have been willing to take it on if there was something else available. Going nearly 1,000' across an open field with driving snow at -30F once or twice in the winter wasn't any easier than biking up and down a steep hill in slush on a heavily trafficked road midwinter.
Why weren't boys hired as baby sitters? Seems to me a good baby sitter would make a lot more working two or three nights a week than I ever made getting up at 4am 7 days a week to deliver the paper.
If you want to understand, watch movies from the 1940s and 1950s. Papers were to be delivered by boys, babysitting was to be done by girls. This started changing in the 1960s.
Family values were a lot higher back when I was a kid and we had paperboys. Girls were not allowed to ride around the neighborhoods throwing papers. Most girls of the time had strict instructions to never be a lone anywhere. Kinda hard to do throwing papers. The girl and the family's reputation was more important than a girl throwing papers. Yeah, a girl throwing papers would have looked like she was advertising she was "available". But that's the way it was back then.
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