Bookkeeping and Accounting

This 1945 vocational film, filmed in black-and-white, explores the roles, tools, and career paths of bookkeepers and accountants in postwar America. It opens with a close-up of a budget book, a woman’s manicured hand tracing totals with a fountain pen, tying personal finance to professional skills. The narrative spans household budgeting—two women order at a butcher shop—and business accounting: a male accountant hammers a typewriter calculator, while another pencils figures into ledgers. Scenes depict checkwriting, bill processing, and audits, with tools like calculators and spreadsheets front and center. In a bustling office, 1940s female bookkeepers type furiously alongside male accountants, reflecting wartime shifts in gender roles. The film highlights advancement—chief accountants, CPAs, FBI investigators—via a man with a “Special Investigator” card and a cost-accounting study of a factory worker’s drill efficiency. Stressing moral character for audits and tax work, it ends with a row of women at bookkeeping machines and an American Institute of Accountants test, blending practicality with postwar ambition.