Here are the prerequisites: -Meeting with clients -Pays well. I don't want him to work a "dirty" job, such as a factory or the like. It needs to be something he dresses up for, does paperwork, and room for advancement. I was thinking something along the lines of Advertising Executive, but how much would that have paid?
Your character could just have inheritted their wealth in the form of an established company. They could be accepted onto the company's board but not trusted enough to be in control of anything but incidentals.
Do you know how much any of these pay? I'm having trouble finding anything about professions in that era.
Sorry, I don't. Just that their standard of living would be comfortable if they were moderately successful within those professions. After all, I have to leave SOME of the research to the author.
my father was a hospital administrator in the late 40s and i can remember him getting a raise to all of $6,500 per annum! needless to say, a dollar bought a heckuva lot more back then... keep in mind that those were the post-war days, when many returning vets were looking for jobs and the industries were still trying to switch over from wartime production...
I've been several times already, and even with the help of the librarian we couldn't find a single thing.
running what was the most prestigious private hospital in nyc!... it was where famous folk like babe ruth and the duke of windsor would go...
Cool! Would he need to meet with clients and arrange meetings and such? It would be cool to use this occupation...
hospitals don't have 'clients'... they have patients... and in my dad's hospital's case, patrons!... such as the duponts... and yes, there would be meetings of all kinds... i had my tonsils out there ['the french hospital'], when my dad was just the office manager and i worked there during summer vacations from high school, when he was the director, so can give you all kinds of details, if you want to email me... http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F00E1D61E3BE631A25750C1A9679D946597D6CF love and hugs, maia maia3maia@hotmail.com
And just to give some perspective on how much 6,500 was worth, a chocolate bar that we pay 1-2 dollars for now would have been only a few pennies, or maybe only one penny. If I am not mistaken, this was around the time when dime novels litterally were a dime.
the only penny candies in the late 40s were the single little bits, like the small tootsie rolls, or a peppermint stick... chocolate bars were not that cheap... more like five or ten cents... and a glass of coke, or a lime rickey at a drugstore soda fountain would be a nickel... ice cream soda, a quarter...
Well, I would call five of something as "a few," so I wasn't totally off. Was I right about the dime novels?
In the mid 50's, my brother and I used to walk down to the local family store and buy candy from open bins at 5 pieces for a penny. A nickel bought a candy bar or a full sized pickle from the pickle barrel. Dad raised a family of five kids on $320 per month. Back to your OP, accountants made decent money back in the late 40's. Attorneys were a dime a dozen and many were reduced to "ambulance chasing" to earn a living but those who got into big legal firms made decent money as long as they played the politics game. There were several post war industries that experienced rapid growth such as automobile manufacturing, sales and service. Many execs within this industry made very good money. But for your purposes, they were office workers, not client-based businesses. Other industries that boomed at that time were oil/gas development, entertainment (theme parks, boardwalks, theater), commercial plastics development companies and aviation as Boeing, Lockheed, etc. were beginning to develop the early commercial air travel. Again, executives in these industry would not meet your requirement of having clients, however, all these industries had one thing in common -- advertising. Large amounts of money went into advertising agencies to promote cars, air travel, theme parks, oil companies, plastics, movies and electronics. An ideal job, and one that could meet all your requirements, would be a high level advertising executive. Good money. Clients. Lots of travel, both domestic and foreign. Unlimited contacts in nearly every industry in case you need additional characters for your story. Your MC could even visit with famous people like Howard Hughes, Henry Ford II, Elvis Presley, Einstein or Ghandi.
i don't know about the 'dime novels' because i only read piles of the good 'real' ones, from the library... besides which, they were popular in the previous century and had died out by about 1940...
Have you ever heard the term "greedy shopkeepers"? My dad had a hardware store, which he purchased in January 1946. As a kid in the late forties I helped out on Saturdays and then became a full-time employee in the early fifties. In the first five-ten years after the war, owning a hardware store was like having a licence to print money. Everything was in short supply and people were desperate to get back to normal. I could fill a book with recollections and anecdotes about the money we raked in back then. So make your character a shopkeeper.
What a fascinating thread. My grandpa was a jobbing journalist, I could find out from grandma how much he earnt in those days. They were comfortable enough. LOL, he even wore a cravat and monocle. Every bit the literary toff!
