Feministing has a hilarious and frightening link to a 1943 business manual on hiring women. It was published in Transportation Magazine and it includes this choice morsel:

If you can get them, pick young married women. They have these advantages, according to the reports of western companies: they usually have more of a sense of responsibility than do their unmarried sisters; they're less likely to be flirtatious; as a rule, they need the work or they wouldn't be doing it – maybe a sick husband or one who's in the army; they still have the pep and interest to work hard and to deal with the public efficiently.

This has prompted Yglesias to remind us all to that, even when change seems slow, the amount that has happened in a human lifetime is extraordinary.