Eleanor Pulliam – Stockbroker

In 1958, at the age of 41, Eleanor Pulliam began a 25-year career working in the hectic and busy world of the U.S. Stock Market. She wasn’t looking for a job at the time but a friend told her of an opening in his brokerage office. She had always loved the market and followed stocks closely, so she decided to take the job.


Eleanor Pulliam, in her apartment at
Morningside at Menger Springs.



 Her first job there was simply a wire operator. The stockbrokers in the office were all men. They wrote up the orders and then she put them on a wire that sent them to a central office, where the orders were executed. She quickly learned that operating the wire was not so simple. Luckily, with the help of a very supportive boss who encouraged her to stick it out, she mastered the wire and worked her way up through the ranks at the office.


The brokerage office that she worked for was merged with a larger New York house a few years later and Eleanor took on even more office duties. The companies kept merging, she worked for six different ones in all, with Eleanor stepping up in position with each one. Finally, in 1975, she decided to become a broker herself. She took and passed the licensing test and became the first female stock broker in the office.


“I even had other offices that were trying to recruit me,” she said. “Because there came a time when companies needed to hire more women and there just were not very many women stockbrokers.”


It wasn’t easy at first, though. Most of the clients were men and not all of them were comfortable with a female stockbroker. “Some of my girlfriends made their husbands do business with me, “ she said. “They were so uncomfortable with it.”


But after doing business with her, their fears were diminished. She even had one client tell her that after being in the stock market for 60 years, she was the best broker he had ever dealt with. But it was not only the men that were uncomfortable with her new position, some of the other women in the office felt she shouldn’t be treated as equal to the men.


“The men actually treated me better than the other women in the office,” she said. “The men were all helpful. They all wanted me to get my license and to do well.”


Eleanor has seen tremendous changes in the industry over the last 50 years. Of course, computers have replaced all of the manual processes. Computers were coming into the offices when she retired in 1983, but were only used to keep track of client holdings, not to buy and sell stock.


“The system was much simpler then,” said Eleanor. “We were trained to be client-oriented and to give good service. All of our business was done face-to-face. Plus, we didn’t make the money they make now!”


But pay was the one area where she always felt on equal par with the men in the office. Since all the stockbrokers worked on commissions, she had the opportunity to make just as much, or even more, than anyone in the office.


With all the changes in business models and the addition of so many different funds and with how complicated the system has become, Eleanor is thankful she retired when she did.


“I’m kind of glad I’m not in it now,” she said. “There are so many politics that go into it and there is so much more out there now. It’s a whole lot more complicated.”


She still keeps up with the market on a daily basis but when it comes to stock tips, don’t ask her for any. “I have my own portfolio that I still work with, “ said Eleanor. “But I don’t give out advice!”