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“Let’s look in on a high-school bookkeeping class,” begins this short film from 1947. And when we do, we’re introduced to a variety of students who have decided that bookkeeping is just what they need to get ahead in life.
This film argues that bookkeeping knowledge is important for everyone. It’s like a propaganda piece for the subject. Bookkeeping is useful, it says, for a variety of reasons:
- If you plan to go into business.
- If you want to be a farmer (!?!).
- To fill out your income-tax forms.
- To invest in stocks.
- To get a good job, or to earn a promotion.
- If you plan to go into politics (!?!).
The film points out that bookkeeping isn’t just useful for those going into business; it’s useful for families, too. Why does everyone need to know bookkeeping? Here’s how one father puts it to his son:
A family is like a small business. We have our income and our expenses. Some things we buy with cash, others on open charge accounts, and some on the installment plan. Important transactions, such as buying our home, call for careful planning, and the keeping of records to be sure our plan is carried out.
[...]
Like a business, a family that keeps regular accounts can plan better for the future, and it’s less likely to go broke. Why even your mother finds it helpful to understand bookkeeping.
It’s a lot of fun to see some of the old technology from 1947, such as the grocery store’s manual cash register. I never realized these machines tabulated cumulative daily totals. The grocery store itself is interesting because it’s transitional: moving from the “ask the grocer” model to our modern “get it yourself” model.
It’s also fascinating to realize that the grocer carried charge accounts for his customers, and kept the records by hand. Kris and I just made a huge grocery trip this afternoon. I cannot imagine the folks at Safeway allowing us (and the thousands of others who shop there) store credit, or keeping paper records. It’s only been 60 years since this video was produced, but things have changed a lot!
Yes, all the students in the bookkeeping class will use the skills they learn later in life. But what’s this? “Someone seems to be absent today! Or perhaps this vacant seat is for you.”
Great stuff.
This film reminds me a lot of a guest post from two years ago in which Flexo explained how to be CFO of your own life.
This article is about Funny Money, Odds and Ends Saturday, 22nd November 2008 (by J.D. Roth)
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:32 am
It’s hard to believe this was only 60 yrs ago. I like Henry who wanted to go into politics. You would think accounting would be a requirement for holding public office.
Wouldn’t it be great if Congress knew something about bookkeeping?
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:56 am
The “farm boy” is none other than Dick York, common in educational films at the time (see “Shy Guy,” “Last Date,” “Combat Fatigue: Insomnia” etc.) Later he would grow up to play the first (and best) Darrin Stephens in “Bewitched.”
November 22nd, 2008 at 6:55 am
I grew up on a farm, and my brother is a farmer. He and my parents have always been pretty frugal — they have more money than I do. I don’t know that they ever had budgets, though. I never saw my parents going over a budget. My Mom did keep a ledger, though, of stuff to include for taxes. I remember her taking H&R Block classes so she could do the farm taxes for awhile. Now my aunt, who does accounting for a living, does them. And my aunt doesn’t have a college degree.
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:23 am
Hahaha, thanks for the post. I love that the income statement and balance sheet are the exact same as what they teach us in college today, no matter how much technology has changed.
When I tutor kids in accounting, I always try to reassure them that they WILL be able to understand accounting, because it’s the logical way of recording stuff, and that’s why it’s stayed relatively the same for so long.
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:07 am
HI I cannot help but smiling when I read your post. We have a village shop and we do exactly that. We have customers with accounts. Its an old model but it enables regular customers to not have to carry cash. It is based on trust and local knowledge. These shops were built on relationships. We are very much a relic here in the UK but are proud of it. At the same time we embrace technology where we can. Thank you for making us feel nostalgic and fully engaged in the present. Excellent post….would be good for every teenager to see that.
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:09 am
While many people don’t think about this, a farm is a business. One of my farm clients actually keeps better records than many of the companies I do accounting for.
He knows not only where all the money came from (sales of produce) and to (purchases of equipment, seed, etc.) but also what the weather was on EACH day of the last five years, and how it affected his planting/weeding/harvesting schedule.
Not all of these records are what you would think of as “traditional” record keeping, but they all help him to run his farm (business) and his life better. And that makes them useful.
And the real point is that you can’t make decisions in a vacume, you need to know where you are before you can decide how to get to where you want to be. Bookkeeping/record keeping shouldn’t be done “because it has to be done” but because it gives you information about where you were and where you are so you can plan for the future realistically.
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:27 am
Ah, the unconscious misogyny. As best exemplified in the following two quotes:
1. “Why, even your mother finds it helpful to understand bookkeeping.” — Because, of course, women were supposed to understand housekeeping, not bookkeeping. Why on Earth would a woman want to handle money?
2. “Nancy… has plans for becoming a stenographer and advancing to be a secretary.” — Whereas the men in the class have dreams to own a grocery store, go into business, or become a senator or governor. Women can aspire to become secretaries or own beauty salons.
Gotta love it.
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:31 am
@Julie
All of these old films are like that. This one’s actually better than most because it shows that girls can become women with jobs. A couple I’ve shared in the past are shocking by today’s standards!
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:33 am
@J.D.
Yup, I know. That’s why I’m tongue-in-cheek, not truly offended. It’s amazing how far things have come in 60 years.
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:47 am
It’s always a lot of fun to look back at how it used to be. I find it interesting, though, that this history is unknown to so many now. Don’t most of us have family and friends who are older? I’m in my mid-forties, but I have a friend who is about 20 years older who was denied a home loan in the early 70’s because ’she would get married and quit her job’ and then who would pay for the house? I remember, too, my grandma (born 1899) always talking about ‘going into town to trade’ or ‘we trade at the Save Mart’. By the way, there are still checkers at the Save Mart who remember her. I don’t think there was any barter going on, just what country folk called it. Of course, I love that kind of nostalgia, so I probably go looking for it.
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:07 am
i spent half my childhood on the family farm, and i can attest to the massive amounts of bookkeeping required in the business. livestock records for optimal breeding schedules, crop records for field rotations, milk quality bonuses, inspection records, all the seed you buy, the fuels, the maintenance and repairs for each farm implement… LOTS of records to keep. a family farm is a very complex, very involved business.
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:40 am
You said “I cannot imagine the folks at Safeway allowing us (and the thousands of others who shop there) store credit.” It’s true that grocery store credit is pretty much entirely gone, but it hung on longer than you’d think. I remember when I was a kid - 20 to 25 years ago - we had a charge account at one of the grocery stores in our small town. It was very informal; my dad would just sign the receipt and come in later that week and pay it off.
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:00 am
My wife’s family still has a charge account at the grocery store in south-east Kansas. They sent me to the store and just said “Tell then 5555.”
I did and they gave me food. It was a little strange because they knew all about me, “Oh, you’re married to … and you do … and you live …”
Small town closeness is not something I’m used to.
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:24 am
I don’t know quite why but I find videos from the 40’s and 50’s rather fascinating. I particularly enjoy the narrator’s voice. I swear that they must have had the same guy doing about half of the recordings. His voice sounds familiar…
I think it was cool that they used to have charge accounts at family grocery stores. It’s kind of like keeping a charge account for the paperboy. Part of me longs for the days like that. Everything is so regimented and formalized now. I think it would have been a really neat time to live in…
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:36 am
Pretty cool! My job still uses the old fashioned ledgers! My boss knows them in and out and I’m working closely with her to get our accounting moved into an electronic system. She’s 68 and not at all happy about the switch, but I think once I get it all set up she’ll appreciate that some of her job won’t be so tedious. She does our payroll by hand even! I tried to set up an Excel spreadsheet for her, but she continues to rewrite it by hand, twice a month (and we get paid twice a month so the checks are always the same, but it SUCH a lot of work!). Thanks for sharing this!
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:09 am
Loved the video! Thanks for posting!
While technology has changed, as well as society (women being able to get more than a job owning a beauty parlor, secretary or housewife) the basics of book keeping and their importance are the same.
Just goes to show that good information/principles never go out of style.
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:32 am
Your film reminds me of the “good ol’ days” when life was slower and less complicated.
As a little girl, I well remember our local country grocery store and having a running balance. At that time we were out in the sticks, but Mom would call up with her order and the grocer would deliver to our back door. Imagine her surprise, as a new Yankee bride, calling up to order chicken and they delivered the real live thing. What a hoot! Of course, she sent it right back. I love telling that story.
November 22nd, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Farming is definitely a business.
November 22nd, 2008 at 1:13 pm
My parents used to run a tab at the grocery store - this was in the 60s and 70s in Montreal. Supermarkets didn’t extend this kind of credit, but the little corner/grocery store certainly did.
Funny how we have more tools are our disposal (my parents: pen and paper; me: a power computer and the vast resources on the web) yet many of us still struggle with personal finance. I have to say that in the year that I’ve been reading this blog, my finances have improved greatly, and my financial mindfulness even more so. Someday I hope to be as mindful as my parents were.
Oh, and a side note: Flexo has posted his balance sheet and his income statement for October 2008, check his November 3 entry. Most enlightening!
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:55 pm
But remember, this was in the days peopole knew how to count change too! No machine to tell you what to give back!
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:32 pm
I love these old videos & I agree that it’s a lot of fun to see the old technology like the mechanical cash register. The thing that that really knocked my socks off was when the girl who was studying to be a secretary just up and folded the typewriter into the desk - I build custom furniture (as a hobby now, hopefully as a living or at least a paying hobby someday soon), and that mechanism really got my attention. I’m thinking I’ll have to do some research and see if I could build a desk like that. How cool would it be to tuck away your printer, monitor, etc. when not in use?!
November 23rd, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Speaking of misogynist stuff from the not-so-distant past, in 1973 (the year before I was born), a young woman named Kim Gandy had just gotten a job at South Central Bell in Louisiana and was filling out a form to participate in their stock option plan. When she got down to the bottom of the form she saw a notice that said, “IF MARRIED, HUSBAND MUST SIGN HERE.” Louisiana’s head and master law put husbands in charge of the household finances regardless of who was actually earning the paychecks. She got mad and started agitating with New Orleans NOW and they got an Equal Management Law passed in 1980. She’s president of NOW these days, or last I heard.
Speaking of Louisiana, my family lives there, and in the little town where my parents went to high school, there used to be two groceries. One was owned by a friend of my mom’s family; he was driven out of business by Dollar General a few years ago. Both he and the other grocer had charge accounts for customers. It wasn’t just a courtesy thing; there is a lot of poverty in that town and oftentimes the only time people had money was when welfare or Social Security came in. Last I heard the other grocery is still there and still has charge accounts for its customers, at least I hope so.
November 23rd, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Oh yeah–and Chris (#22): I worked at Safelite Auto Glass’s corporate building several years ago, taking incoming claims for auto glass work (several insurance companies outsourced that to us), and the desks were really neat–you looked down through a glass panel to see your monitor. It was the next best thing to having a flatscreen and freed up SO much room on your desk.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:55 am
“It’s also fascinating to realize that the grocer carried charge accounts for his customers, and kept the records by hand.”
My Grandmother used to talk about the time as a child when her father sent her down to the grocery store with a $100 bill to pay the month’s credit tab with. When she got to the store, it took her a while to get her hand open, since she’d been clutching the bill so tightly. (That’s a HUGE amount of money for a child in a rural area in the 1920’s! And she knew her family couldn’t afford for it to get lost.)
But that was how they would do it– they bought their groceries on credit, the grocer recognized his customers and kept track of their tabs by hand, then when a paycheck came, you’d pay the grocer what you owe.
@Julie — when my Mom was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, her Dad was considered extremely progressive for encouraging her to go to college and get an education so that she could support herself “in case anything ever happened” to her as-yet unmet husband. Being able to support herself was presented as a backup strategy in case of catastrophe– but even that was too much for a lot of people. The guidance councilor (!) at her high-school tried to talk her out of bothering with college, since she was obviously “just going to get married and have babies anyway”.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:23 am
That’s fun to watch.
The whole ‘family as a business’ idea was the basis for a presentation I made in a business class at college when I’d already decided that I wanted to stay home and be a mom when I had kids. A lot of guys wondered why I was bothering with a business degree.
Debt free and money in the bank. That’s why.
November 24th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Two things:
-Did anyone else notice the pens they all used? Every pen in that segment was a fountain pen - not a ballpoint in sight.
-I <3 that desk.
November 25th, 2008 at 10:57 am
That’s funny about stores allowing charge accounts. But you’ve just got to remember it was a different world back then. You usually had your local grocery store and that was it, not 4 supermarkets in a 5 mile radius like many of us are accustomed to today. They knew you, and you knew them, there was loyalty and there was trust.
November 25th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
As others have mentioned, charge accounts at grocery stores in rural areas have continued to be around. My parents had one when I was growing up in rural Washington state in the ’80s and ’90s… I recall using it to pick up groceries for my mom on the way home from school in the mid-to-late 90s when I had my driver’s license. Actually, I think my parents didn’t open the account until I had my license, specifically so I could do errands like that. But since credit cards have become more prevalent, and that grocery store was assimilated into a chain, I doubt the store still does charge accounts.