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nocowardsoul) wrote2024-10-25 10:32 am
nocowardsoul) wrote2024-10-25 10:32 am
Numbers on children's/YA career fiction through 1979
Months ago I posted a list on Tumblr
https://www.tumblr.com/caddyxjellyby/754276286076272640/preliminary-numbers-on-childrensya-career-novels?source=share
But I have added pages for many more books or series since then. In fact there are 146 books with at least one sequel, 580 standalone books, 1 short story collection about diving, and 1 series of short stories about Kay Collins, Secretary which appeared in the Cherry Ames Girls Annual. You can see that the number of nurse protagonists has more than doubled, but it is no longer the most common job. The most common is
Military - 92
Nurse - 74 - those two overlap a bit, with several of the nurses in the army, navy or air force. I suspect the reasons for the number of them are that first, they were popular with readers and second, there are various kinds of nurses. And Great Day in the Morning and the Mary Ellis duology are the only books I know that have black heroines.
Pilot - 36 - many of these are military but not all
Flight attendant - 20 - I used this instead of stewardess because it was also used for women who worked on ocean liners
Librarian or library page - 19
Newspaper reporter - 19
Secretary - 15
Teacher - 15
Doctor - 14
Stage actor - 13
Diving - 11
Fashion design - 11
Park service or forest service - 11
Ballet or ballet teacher - 10
Photography - 10
Pro athlete - 10
Fishing - 9
Home economics - 9 - this also overlaps with military. Uncle Sam wants YOU, girls, to serve as dietician!
Retail sales - 9
Fashion model - 8
Radio - 8
Advertising - 7
Agriculture - 7
Circus - 6
Cosmetology - 6
Police - 6
Social work - 6
Veterinarian - 6
Fish and game department - 5
Retail buyer - 5
4 - Lumberjack, nurse's aide, occupational therapy, painter or illustrator, pre-school teacher, public relations, writer
3 - Ceramics, copywriter, firefighter, interior design, physical therapy, publishing, railroad, real estate, surveyor
2 - Camp counselor, chemistry, choreography, continuity in film, floristry, gardening, kennels, lawyer, missionary, publicity, sailor (not navy), scout leader, speech therapy, travel agent
1 - Architect, baker, bookkeeper, geology, golf caddy, medical technician, switchboard, telephone at the newspaper, weather presenter, X-ray technician
https://www.tumblr.com/caddyxjellyby/754276286076272640/preliminary-numbers-on-childrensya-career-novels?source=share
But I have added pages for many more books or series since then. In fact there are 146 books with at least one sequel, 580 standalone books, 1 short story collection about diving, and 1 series of short stories about Kay Collins, Secretary which appeared in the Cherry Ames Girls Annual. You can see that the number of nurse protagonists has more than doubled, but it is no longer the most common job. The most common is
Military - 92
Nurse - 74 - those two overlap a bit, with several of the nurses in the army, navy or air force. I suspect the reasons for the number of them are that first, they were popular with readers and second, there are various kinds of nurses. And Great Day in the Morning and the Mary Ellis duology are the only books I know that have black heroines.
Pilot - 36 - many of these are military but not all
Flight attendant - 20 - I used this instead of stewardess because it was also used for women who worked on ocean liners
Librarian or library page - 19
Newspaper reporter - 19
Secretary - 15
Teacher - 15
Doctor - 14
Stage actor - 13
Diving - 11
Fashion design - 11
Park service or forest service - 11
Ballet or ballet teacher - 10
Photography - 10
Pro athlete - 10
Fishing - 9
Home economics - 9 - this also overlaps with military. Uncle Sam wants YOU, girls, to serve as dietician!
Retail sales - 9
Fashion model - 8
Radio - 8
Advertising - 7
Agriculture - 7
Circus - 6
Cosmetology - 6
Police - 6
Social work - 6
Veterinarian - 6
Fish and game department - 5
Retail buyer - 5
4 - Lumberjack, nurse's aide, occupational therapy, painter or illustrator, pre-school teacher, public relations, writer
3 - Ceramics, copywriter, firefighter, interior design, physical therapy, publishing, railroad, real estate, surveyor
2 - Camp counselor, chemistry, choreography, continuity in film, floristry, gardening, kennels, lawyer, missionary, publicity, sailor (not navy), scout leader, speech therapy, travel agent
1 - Architect, baker, bookkeeper, geology, golf caddy, medical technician, switchboard, telephone at the newspaper, weather presenter, X-ray technician
no subject
This is fascinating! May I know what list you were working from? Because I'd like to read each and every of those newspaper reporter novels. :)
no subject
This site has a bunch of English-language children's series. https://c.web.umkc.edu/crossonm/aaaa_masterlist.htm
LibraryThing has pages for many series like Dodd, Mead Career Books for Girls and Mary Dunn Career Novels. https://seriesbooks.info/index.html and https://www.series-books.com/ have been very useful, also this one Cherry Ames website that can only be accessed via the Wayback Machine.
Right now I'm browsing copies of The Booklist on Archive.org which is an interesting glimpse into history.
no subject
Squee! Thank you for all these delicious resources!