Administrative Professionals Day

[1] During World War II, there was a shortage of skilled administrative personnel in the United States due to Depression-era birth-rate decline and booming post-war business.

[7][8] Key figures who created the holiday were the president of the National Secretaries Association, Mary Barrett; president of Dictaphone Corporation, C. King Woodbridge; and public relations account executives at Young & Rubicam, Harry F. Klemfuss and Daren Ball.

[9] The name was changed to Professional Secretaries Week in 1981 and became Administrative Professionals Week in 2000 to encompass the expanding responsibilities and wide-ranging job titles of administrative support staff in the modern economy.

The week-long observance was created in order to space out the bookings at restaurants, country clubs, and other places where administrative professionals would be taken out to lunch.

[11][12] It has also been argued that the traditional gifts of flowers and cards unintentionally mark the holiday and the administrative role as a gendered one, since these are typically feminine gifts, and that a specific day to celebrate administrative professionals isolates them from the rest of their workplace peers.