“Path of Secretarial Initiative”: The Labor of Three Secretaries in the Marc Nerlove Papers

Marc Nerlove’s office filing system, circa 1973, box 77, folder Settling in at 624 Colfax and 629 Noyes, 1973-1975.

Filing is another critical secretarial responsibility. Hirsch would have been expected to maintain the filing system detailed above, which later formed the basis for the current organization of Nerlove’s papers as an archival collection. In a separate 1973 letter, he requests 8 filing cabinets and 15 bookcases for this material in the two-room office at Northwestern that they would share. This was less than 20 years into his career and does not include any of the files that he kept at home. By the time Nerlove’s papers came to Duke in 2016, they had grown to 350 linear feet.  

Stina Hirsch to Marc Nerlove, 6 May 1974, box 77, folder Settling in at 624 Colfax and 629 Noyes, 1973-1975.

This could be considered an example of “other duties as assigned.” Hirsch’s obituary states that she spent her “productive years” at Northwestern and organized the clerical staff into a bargaining unit.