The photograph on which this drawing is based was discovered in a box of items the design writer, historian, and educator Steven Heller found in a thrift store in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, many years ago. The young woman featured is Zola Shirey, who had the misfortune of graduating from college and entering the job market in the fall of 1929. The box included a handwritten draft of a letter of inquiry she’d written in the attempt to secure a job in the hospitality industry, as well as 30 rejection letters sent to her by a range of businesses. These responses were reproduced in facsimile in Esopus 4 (2005), along with her handwritten letter, included as a removable insert.