Why did the FBI recruit girls from Catholic high schools?

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Investigation, Chicago, Radio, Arts, Society & Culture, Public, Education, Curious, City

4.6 • 661 Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2026

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For a few decades starting in the 1940s, the FBI recruited high school girls for clerical work. A Chicago Catholic school was a go-to spot to make new hires.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region.
0:05.8	And investigate.
0:07.0	Report.
0:07.7	Explore.
0:08.5	From WB.E.Z.
0:10.6	What's up, Chicago? I'm Erin Allen.
0:13.3	Over recent decades, the FBI is known to have quite a competitive hiring process.
0:19.2	So, it may be hard to believe.
0:21.4	There was a time when the agency was recruiting
0:23.9	high school students to work office jobs.
0:27.6	Reporter Robert Lorizel takes us back in time
0:30.2	for this week's story.
0:34.9	It was 1947.
0:37.1	The FBI showed up at Notre Dame High School for Girls on Chicago's Northwest Side.
0:42.3	Officials were looking for a few good Catholic girls to work at the FBI.
0:48.3	One of the students at the school that day was Patricia DePesquale.
0:52.3	She would say when I was a senior in high school, they
0:56.4	had an assembly and a couple agents from the Chicago Bureau came over. That's Pat's daughter,
1:04.1	Carmi Cayobre, who lives in Skokie. And they talk to us about the possibility of working
1:09.6	for the Bureau as secretaries or stenographers or switchboard operators.
1:14.6	Karmie, our question asker, thought this recruitment strategy was strange.
1:19.6	I was flabbergasted.
	...

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