typist

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.

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

See oztypewriter.blogspot.com

This blog post suggests that this Bain photo is from 1907