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Early Office Museum

Vintage Photographs of Office Interiors
~ 1930s-1950s ~ 

Click Image to Enlarge	Description	Source
	Large Office.  Photograph by National Photograph and Advertising Co., Chicago, IL.	Early Office Museum Archives
	Office with front-strike typewriters.	Early Office Museum Archives
	Underwriting Division, Fireman's Fund Insurance Co., Chicago, IL, 1931.	Fireman's Fund
	Clerks at His Majesty's Stationery Office stuff envelopes in connection with the War Loan conversion program, Engliand, 1932.  When interest rates declined during the Depression, the war loan conversion program asked people to accept 2% (according to reports on the internet) or 3.5% (according to the caption on the photo) rather than 5% on investments in government bonds.	Early Office Museum Archives
	Mr. Papper, Auditor's Office, Hotel Roanoke, Roanoke, Virginia, 1930s. There is a Comptometer and another calculator.	Virginia Tech ImageBase, Norfolk & Western Hist. Photo. Coll., No. ns6111.
	Bookkeeping office, 1933. Photograph shows 17-column Burroughs electric adding and listing machines, possibly Duplex Adding and Listing or Duplex Subtractor Bookkeeping Machines.	Charles Babbage Institute, Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Burroughs Corp. Collection, cb000186.
	Equitable Assurance Co., 1934. Bookkeeping staff using Moon Hopkins bookkeeping machines.	Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, P. A. Juley & Son Collection
	Four women working on Hollerith tabulating machines, Milk Marketing Board, England, 1934.  "Information about the number of gallons and rates went onto the producers' cards....[I]t was not until the 1960s that the Board got rid of the last of the Hollerith machines.	Hultun Picture Co. and IRIS Publishing Ltd.
	Civilian Conservation Corps office. The Federal Government's CCC, which was segregated, planted an estimated three billion trees from 1933 to 1942. There are typewriters and adding machines.	New Deal Network http://newdeal.feri.org/ library/a95
	Works Progress Administration, Recorder of Deeds office.  African American clerical workers revising old records, Washington, DC, 1936.	New Deal Network http://newdeal.feri.org/ library/j86
	Typists at post office working on identification cards for Social Security, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1936.	Minnesota Historic Society, Neg. No. 39987
	Office, 1936.	Courtesy of Québec Commission des Norrmes du Travail and McCord Museum
	Office, Bridgeport Brass, Bridgeport, CT.  Bridgeport Brass was founded in 1865 and operated well into the 20th century.	Private collection.
	Office with two men and a woman at a roll-top desk using a front-strike typewriter and a dictation transcribing machine, 1920.	California State University, Sacramento, Education Department, IMET.
	Works Progress Administration Census Project Historical Records Survey workers wearing masks while inventorying and surveying records in sub-cellar below river level, New York, NY. The WPA was established in 1935.	New Deal Network http://newdeal.feri.org/ library/d17b
	Works Progress Administration Record Project workers in the City Hall file room revising the old filing system, Baltimore, MD, 1940.	New Deal Network http://newdeal.feri.org/ library/j85
Click on link at right to see photo. (Click on thumbnail to see full-size image.) When finished, click the "Back" button on your browser to return here.	Teletype room at general office of International Harvester Co., Chicago, IL, 1937.	Wisconsin Historical Society, Wisconsin Historical Images, No. 12015.
	Edison Ediphone transcription machine operators, Babcock & Wilcox, Ltd., London, England, 1939. Babcock, Wilcox & Co. was founded in 1867 to manufacture industrial boilers.	Edison Historic Site 29320070
	Accounting Department, First National Bank of Chicago, c. 1940. This company had 100 bank bookkeeping machines.	Charles Babbage Institute, Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Burroughs Corp. Collection, cb000185.
	Production Department, 1940. Photographs shows Moon Hopkins bookkeeping machines.	Early Office Museum Archives
	Man in Office with Dictaphone dictating machine.	Courtesy of Tom Cameron
	"Supply and Mailing Department, National Grange Mutual Liability and Fire Insurance Companies, Keene, New Hampshire."  On the back of the postcard someone wrote "Jean 1941."  The postcard shows a rotary duplicating machine, a Graphotype machine, and an Addressograph machine.  The National Grange, the nation's oldest agricultural organization and a fraternal order known as the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, was founded in 1867 and still exists.  The National Grange set up the National Grange Mutual Liability Co. in 1923; the company name was changed to NGM Insurance Co. in 2005.	Early Office Museum Archives
Click on link at right to see photo. (Click on thumbnail to see full-size image.) When finished, click the "Back" button on your browser to return here.	Employees record births in the Vault Room in the State Office Building, Capitol Annex, Madison, WI, 1942.  In the back center, the photo shows a pneumatic tube system used to send papers.	Wisconsin Historical Society, Wisconsin Historical Images, No. 13866.
	Tabulating Card Punching Office, War Department, Washington, DC, 1942. All the women punching cards are African American.  The supervisor in the aisle is white.	Washington Post
	Secretaries, Pentagon, U.S. Department of Defense, Washington, DC, 1943	Washingtoniana Room, MLK Jr. Library, reproduced in Paul K. Williams, Washington, D.C.: The World War II Years, Arcadia, 2004.
	Office, Pentagon, U.S. Department of Defense, Washington, DC, World War II.	Washingtoniana Room, MLK Jr. Library, reproduced in Paul K. Williams, Washington, D.C.: The World War II Years, Arcadia, 2004.
	File Room, Pentagon, U.S. Department of Defense, Washington, DC, World War II.	Washingtoniana Room, MLK Jr. Library, reproduced in Paul K. Williams, Washington, D.C.: The World War II Years, Arcadia, 2004.
	Female Clerical Workers Recording Savings Bond Information in Large Ledgers, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Washington, DC, World War II.	Washingtoniana Room, MLK Jr. Library, reproduced in Paul K. Williams, Washington, D.C.: The World War II Years, Arcadia, 2004.
	Secretarial Pool, National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, ballroom of a private mansion, 1943.	Washingtoniana Room, MLK Jr. Library, reproduced in Paul K. Williams, Washington, D.C.: The World War II Years, Arcadia, 2004.
	Office of Samuel Plato, Washington, DC, 1943.  Samuel Plate was an African American building contractor.  All the office workers are African American.	National Archives
	Interior of Office at U.S. Office of War Information, Washington, DC, 1943.  Domestically the OWI (1942-45) disseminated and regulated war news, promoted patriotism, and warned about spies.  Abroad it engaged in propaganda and sought to undermine enemy morale.	Courtesy of LIFE Photo Archive
	U.S. Military Offices.  Top photo shows tabulating machines used to tabulate data from punched cards.  Middle photo shows key punch machines used to punch cards used in tabulating machines .  Bottom photo shows teletype machines.	Early Office Museum Archives
	"All Other Expenses Unit of Budget & Acct Section, Federal Bureau of Investigation, July 1944."	Early Office Museum Archives
	Office in the U.K.	Private collection
	Office with 15 Comptometers,  from the Studios of Felt & Tarrant Mfg. Co., Chicago, 1947.	Early Office Museum Archives
	U.S. Department of State, Division of International Press and Publications, Wire Room, Washington, DC, 1949. Integrated work force. "A view of the wire room through which pass 150.... [fix] words a day.  The Wireless Bulletin of 7,000 words is sent out twice daily to New York City and San Francisco for broadcast to 50 U.S. diplomatic posts throughout the world.  The Division also supplies through these machines complete daily coverage of significant Washington news to the Voice of America Office in New York for broadcast in foreign countries.	Early Office Museum Archives
	General Accounts Section, United Nations, New York, NY, 1951.	Private collection
	Office, California.	Private collection
	Office, U.K. The typist closest to the camera is using a Bar-Lock typewriter, presumably a late frontstrike model.	Early Office Museum Archives
	Office of White Rose, New York, NY.  White Rose was a large wholesale food distributor.  Signs on the walls advertise White Rose Quality Foods and Pique Seasoning.  The White Rose private label brand was introduced at the beginning of the 20th century.  Pique Seasoning was widely used as a flavor amplifier in the 1940s and was still on the market in the 1970s. White Rose, which is now owned by Di Giorgio Corp., is presently the largest independent wholesale food distributor in the New York City metropolitan area.	Early Office Museum Archives
	Office with Files at Railroad Company.	Early Office Museum Archives
	Office with Files at Railroad Company	Early Office Museum Archives
	Office with typewriters, adding machines, vertical files, 13 women, and 3 men, Chicago, IL. Photograph by Kelly Powell, Chicago, IL.	Early Office Museum Archives
	Office, Payroll Department, Penn Fruit Co., Philadelphia, PA.  Penn Fruit Co. operated a chain of supermarkets between 1927 and the late 1970s.  At one time, the company boasted that its Philadelphia store at 19th and Market Streets was the largest grocery store in the world. In the photo to the left, there are 3 electric Comptometers and, against the back wall, what appears to be a National Cash Register Co. bookkeeping machine.	Early Office Museum Archives
	Office with manual and electric typewriters, Monroe and Marchant electric calculating machines, and vertical files.	Early Office Museum Archives

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