At Present Only Girls Are Needed

For those of you not old enough to have searched through newspaper classifieds looking for work, you probably wouldn’t know that the Help Wanted sections were strictly divided by sex. From 1946, this help wanted ad wasn’t in any way unusual for the time, from Huyck’s Mill in Rensselaer, advertising any number of positions open – for girls. The page of the Knickerbocker News this was taken from is filled with them: Sears, Roebuck & Company, New York Telephone, even Capitol Tomato Corp. were all advertising strictly for female help.

Huyck’s Mill (also known as Huyck Felt Mill) made felt used in paper-making. Between Huyck and Albany Felt (later Albany International), Albany was a hotbed of large-scale felt, known in the business as “machine clothing.” Much of the complex still stands and is used as State offices.