Records Making, Office Machines, and Workers in Historical Contexts: Five Photographs of Offices in the British Civil Service c. 1919 and 1947

Abstract

This article uses five images selected from the Stationery Office and the Treasury to anchor a discussion of copying technologies in office processes in the British Civil Service between circa 1919 and 1947. The first section situates the photographs within a specific history of the use of copying technologies within administrative offices based on reading the images in concert with the surviving textual records of these departments. The second section views the photographs as visual symbols of the feminization of clerical work during this time period, a view informed by reading the images in conjunction with the literature exploring the ‘white blouse’ revolution and the proletarianization of typing work.