By the 1950s, food service had become not only a thoroughly female-dominated occupation, but also one of the principal means by which women earned a living. Four out of five servers were female, and waitressing emerged as the sixth-largest occupation for women, outranked only by clerks and typists, secretaries, saleswomen, private household workers, and teachers.46 The ensuing decades simply extended these trends (Table 1). By 1970, women comprised 92 percent of the trade and waitressing maintained its status as one of the fastest-growing occupations for women.47