Paper Work

This picture was taken in 1938, and shows a woman sorting through the mail. This might have made a good mystery person contest, but would have perhaps been too hard. The woman is Miss Margaret Lehand, secretary to FDR.

Filing Cabinets

This picture was taken in 1919 and shows a man and woman working at a filing cabinet. I really like these old wood style filing drawers. Today they are all made out of thin cheap metal, or fake wood.

Finger Prints

This picture was taken in 1918, and it shows a woman inspecting fingerprint cards. I was not aware that fingerprints were used back then. Does anyone know when fingerprinting started?

Women Typing

Today's picture is from 1937 and shows a large room of women typing. They women are typing social security cards. It is pretty amazing how many people it took to do simple things that we take for granted these days. I can not imagine a more boring job that sitting and typing numbers on cards all day.

Tabulating Machine

Today's picture was taken in 1919, and shows an office worker operating a tabulating machine. The machine was developed by the Census Bureau to help count large numbers of cards. It is interesting that complex mechanical computers were in development all the way back in the 1850's to try and help the Census Bureau with the large task of counting and tabulating the census.

Office Workers

This week we salute office workers across the world here at OPOD. We start the week with this group of men working their adding machines. They are working at the Farm Credit Administration, and the picture was taken in 1937. I find it interesting how well they are all dressed.

So, hopefully we will have some fun this week exploring offices of a by-gone era.