Skill at the physical act of writing—originally handwriting, later typing or “word processing”—was until relatively recently the ticket to a steady job. While such jobs have not completely disappeared, copyist professions such as that described in Herman Melville’s 1853 short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” are no longer commonplace. The story concerns a law office employing legal copyists, who were paid to produce copies of legal documents “at the usual rate of four cents a folio (one hundred words)”.