typist

Were they using Braille?

It's a Stereograph, and it's got "The N.Y. Inst. For The Blind" written on the front right.
It's a machine for embossing zinc plates with Braille, to use as publishing masters and is described in the Institution's 1899 annual report. The description is for use of basically the same machine pictured above, except it is operated with a foot treadle instead of an electric motor:


A letter from the school superintendent to his boss is also in the report:
"We have thoroughly tested the value of the Stereograph and find it to be of so much practical value in our school work that we do not now see how we could do without it The Stereograph has practically put our students on a footing with the sighted It saves valuable time to both teacher and pupil The Stereograph is a perfect machine It will do all you claim for it and more In giving us this machine you have wonderfully facilitated our work."
books.google.com/books?id=f1HKAAAAMAAJ&lpg=PA51&o...

Thanks for the info. That letter sounds like it might have been a paid endorsement. We lived in a town with a school for the blind for years so this is of particular interest.

artolog: Thanks so much for the illustration and explanation (and for pointing us to the source!). We can add some information to the description when we next update.

See notes under

artolog: Thanks for the helpful information. We can add to the description when we next update it.

This design morphed into larger machines with more operators until Optical Character Readers made the keyer obsolete. I saw a lot of these changes from my first postal job in 1968 until I retired in 2006 (didn't work for the PO for all those years!). Tens of thousands of similar machines were scrapped over the years, many in service for very short periods. Technology moved pretty fast.

JOHN LLOYD Thanks for sharing a little bit of your story with The Commons on Flickr community, Hugo90! Truly deepens our perspective and enriches the experience. Sincerely, Susannah Smithsonian Institution Archives

Tiny desk and very small typewriter for the woman in the background. Was wondering if maybe it wasn't a typewriter but some sort of adding machine. Looks very narrow. That rug looks like it's been there for donkey's years, and the new fluorescent tubes are jury-rigged from the old light fittings.

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/eyelightfilms] Still think it's a typewriter, just a portable one - see the lid of the case?

I think it's just a small travel typewriter, a bit like this

I think the phone has it's own desk because there's only one phone for the whole office. I think the closer woman is senior, she is older, has a bigger desk and no typewriter. The younger lady has a tiny desk and a typewriter: she does the job a laser printer would do today.

We had a black Bakelite phone with braided cables like that at home, when I was little in the 60s.