Leaving aside the rather grim setting—which might have been a state-of-the-art office environment in 1924, & would probably fetch a couple mil for subdividing in the Georgetown loft market today, even tricked out as it is—the whole arrangement speaks volumes about the workplace.
Those “computer stands” look like cruel & unusual punishment to me. & with their electromechanical guts, I’m betting the noise would have been comparable to Khachaturian working in a tractor factory.
But it’s fascinating that these were all “personal” computing devices—one human, one machine. (I’m not even going to venture a guess as to the processor capabilities for these things.) Twenty-five years later we’d “progressed” to room-sized Univacs & Eniacs—thanks in no small part to Admiral Grace Hopper, a woman with a true gift for numbers & logic. Then we gradually whittled the technology down to mini- & then microcomputer size. Now I carry around a smartphone with whiz-bang capabilities in the back pocket of my jeans.
Another point of interest is that I can make out exactly two men amongst this phalanx of women—not counting the standing guy, who’s obviously overseeing the operation to ensure there are no shenanigans got up to. (Corporate intrusion into your computer activity goes way back, doesn’t it?)
I have this vision of a bell ringing & the serried rows of computer specialists rising in unison & heading off to the loo. Although—you’ll notice there’s no room on these computer stations for coffee cups.
Finally, scroll to the right & look at the denizens of the other half of this office. Three of the four people closest to the photographer (two female, one male), in their non-adjustable wooden chairs at their big, heavy wooden desks, are looking into the lens with distinctly amused expressions on their faces. Are they happy they’re not part of the computer collective? Feeling superior because they could put a cup of coffee on their workstation (if they were allowed coffee)? Anticipating their own close-up?
I dunno. But this makes me feel less whiny about my brick of a ThinkPad laptop in my office with my ergonomic chair.
