Accounting Historians Notebook Volume 26 Number 1 April 2003 Article 6 April 2003 Database for study of women and accounting from the 18th to 20th century Barbara W. Scofield Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_notebook Part of the Accounting Commons, and the Taxation Commons Recommended Citation Scofield, Barbara W. (2003) "Database for study of women and accounting from the 18th to 20th century," Accounting Historians Notebook: Vol. 26 : No. 1 , Article 6. Available at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_notebook/vol26/iss1/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Archival Digital Accounting Collection at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Accounting Historians Notebook by an authorized editor of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Scofield: Database for study of women and accounting from the 18th to 20th century A Database for Study of Women and Accounting from the 18th to 20th Century Barbara W. Scofield, PhD, CPA The University of Texas of the Permian Basin Abstract member of the Dutch parliament, Dr. Jacobs worked as a women’s rights This article describes The Gerritson crusader and peace activist as well as Collection - Women's History Online physician and gathered material during 1543-1945, an electronic research extensive European travels. Her collection. It includes books, periodicals, and other materials on interests resulted in a collection of women, including women's education works written in fifteen different and employment. The materials languages, published from 1543 to concentrate in the late 1800s and early 1945, and centered on women. This 1900s when Dr. Aletta Jacobs, the historic collection was then further collection's founder, gathered the developed at the Crerar Library in materials in her native Netherlands, Chicago and the University of Kansas throughout Europe, and beyond. The and combined with the Walter Clinton results of keyword searches for Jackson Library at the University of documents relating to accounting and/ North Carolina to include over 2 or bookkeeping is provided. A summary of seven of these accounting-related million page images, 265 periodical documents demonstrates the variety of titles, and 4,471 monographs and resources available. Accounting pamphlets. The scanning of these historians interested in the intersection documents was expected to be of women and accounting will find this a complete in December 2002. useful resource. The Gerritsen Collection - Women's History Online is being transferred to A database of primary sources on women’s history, including women’s electronic access by Chadwyck-Healey employment and education, is now (a subsidiary of ProQuest) using many of the user-friendly features common readily accessible to accounting historians. The Gerritsen Collection – to academic databases. The material Women’s History Online is a recently can be accessed by category digitalized expression of the collection (Education and professional training: 507 books; Women and employment: of books, pamphlets, periodicals, and other material presenting “the evolution 539 books); by subject (bookkeeping: of a feminist consciousness and 1 book; business education: 2 books); women's rights” [The Gerritson by periodical title (Studies in Occupations from the Bureau of Collection, 2002]. The database is created from works collected primarily Vocational Information, New York, by Dr. Aletta Jacobs (1854-1929) 1919-1922; National business woman beginning in the late 1800s. Dr. Jacobs from the National Federation of Business & Professional Women's was the first woman to study at a university and practice medicine in the Clubs, 1919-1974) and by keyword. Netherlands. With her husband Carel This article provides information Victor Gerritsen (1850-1905), a (Continued on page 17) 16 The Accounting Historians Notebook, April 2003 Published by eGrove, 2003 1 Accounting Historians Notebook, Vol. 26 [2003], No. 1, Art. 6 (Continued from page 16) to verify that the keyword did refer to derived from keyword searches and the field of accounting / bookkeeping, searches by periodical from those rather than some other use of these identified in the keyword searches. terms. Thus the numbers in Table 1 are Table 1 compiles the number of lower than the database keyword search documents found using the three results themselves. keywords “accounting”, “accountant”, Table 2 compiles a list of the and bookkeeping and restricting thirty-six periodicals in this database coverage to English language materials. that had at least one document with an As expected there was some overlap in accounting-related keyword. These the documents found, but the list of periodicals are primarily published in unique documents is only 8% less than New York and London, but include the number of documents found with publishers in Canada, Australia, and the three keywords individually. Thus, Ireland as well as smaller U.S. cities the use of multiple keywords to find such as Edwardsville, Illinois and Salt documents covering accounting topics Lake City, Utah. While there are in this database is recommended. The relevant books in this database dating results in Table 1 used the word back to 1798, the periodicals are in the accounting and accountant in quotes to period of 1870 to 1974, representing the avoid matching its cognates of account, entire spectrum of feminist views. accounts etc. which rarely refer to the Compare The woman patriot: dedicated field of accounting; however to the defense of womanhood bookkeeping was entered without motherhood the family and the state quotes in order to include bookkeeper, against suffragism, feminism and bookkeepers etc. which typically are socialism to Equal Rights, which has part of the field of accounting. The U.S. Senator Wm. Cabell Bruce of context of the “hits” was then searched (Continued on page 18) Table 1 Documents with Accounting-Related Keywords in The Gerritson Collection: Women’s History Online, 1543-1945 Documents with Documents with Documents with Unique Documents “Accounting” “Accountant” Bookkeeping (at least one key word) Books Periodicals Books Periodicals Books Periodicals Books Periodicals 1543-1599 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1600-1699 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1700-1799 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1800-1849 0 0 2 0 1 0 3 0 1850-1899 1 4 18 82 10 86 28 172 1900-1945 20 116 32 103 37 147 82 344 1946-1974 0 81 0 47 0 24 0 116 Total 21 201 53 232 48 257 112 632 The Accounting Historians Notebook, April 2003 17 https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_notebook/vol26/iss1/6 2 Scofield: Database for study of women and accounting from the 18th to 20th century (Continued from page 17) children’s having the management Maryland writing in its initial issue of money. [p. 703] “Apart from their [women's] inferiority From this common starting point, to men in mere brute force which unfits however, advice for young women and them for some manual employments young men diverge. Advice for young and political positions of which men women includes only domestic must necessarily have a applications of money management. monopoly” [Bruce, 1923, p. 1 ] to Young women should be Woman's Journal, “Official Organ of accustomed to keep the family the National Women's Suffrage accounts, and their arithmetic Association,” which captions its cover should not be merely a speculative political cartoon, “Uncle Sam, Take the science; they should learn the price Mock out of Democracy” [Front of all necessaries, and of all Cover, 1917, p. 1]. Identifying luxuries; they should learn what periodicals that concentrate on luxuries are suited to their fortune coverage of women in accounting and and rank, what degree of expence business allows browsing for in dress is essential to a regularly accounting-related items that may be neat appearance, and what be the difficult to uncover by keyword alone. increased expence and temptations To provide a sense of the variety of of fashion in different situations; materials available in The Gerritsen they should not be suffered to Collection - Women's History Online, a imagine that they can resist these sample from the books and periodicals temptations more than others, if from each time period in Table 1 are they get into company above their summarized below. These samples rank, or should they have any were chosen on an ad hoc basis as the indistinct idea, that by some author browsed the collection and may wonderfully economical operations not be representative of the collection they can make a given sum of as a whole. However, even these few money go farther than others can works provide insight into the do. The steadiness of calculation historical intersection of the field of will prevent all these vain notions; accounting and women's lives and and young women, when they see careers. in stubborn figures what must be Edgeworth, Maria, and Richard the consequence of getting into Lovell Edgeworth. (1798), Practical situations where they must be Education (London: J. Johnson). tempted to exceed their means, will This manual on child rearing includes probably begin by avoiding, twenty-five chapters on subjects from instead of braving, the danger. [pp. temper to grammar and from sensibility 704-705] to chemistry. The chapter “On On the other hand, parents are to Prudence and Economy” sets up a educate young men through business classic gender division in financial applications: ducation. The discussion of money Before a young man goes into the begins as follows: world, it will be a great advantage We have said, that economy to him to have some share in the cannot be exercised without management of his father's affairs; 18 The Accounting Historians Notebook, April 2003 Published by eGrove, 2003 3 Accounting Historians Notebook, Vol. 26 [2003], No. 1, Art. 6 by laying out money for another The first, is, that care be taken to person he will acquire habits of know the amount of income and of care, which will be useful to him current expenses, so that the proper afterwards in his own affairs.