Carbons to Computers
Historical Timeline 1900-1909
Decade overview
At the turn of the century, the average workweek consists
of ten-hour days, six days a week.
The new century brought important changes in the demographics
of the office workforce. More than one hundred thousand women are employed
as secretaries, stenographers, and typists.
The growing number of offices requiring staff for routine
dictation, typing, and filing skills encourages potential employees to supplement
their general education with specialized training.
Employers emphasize the high status appeal of "office
work," as opposed to "factory labor," while reducing the
salary levels for office work.
Corporate milestones
- 1900
- Paper clip patented
- 1901
- First transatlantic telegraphic radio transmission
-
- First numerical keyboard for punching cards for tabulating
machines developed by Herman Hollerith
- 1902
- Arthur Pitney, a founder of Pitney Bowes Inc., received
a U.S. patent on the world's first postage meter approved for use by the
U.S. Postal Service in 1920
-
- First electric typewriter to be sold worldwide--the Blickensderfer
Electric--produced
- 1903
- Clipper Manufacturing Company formed to manufacture paper-fastening
devices (incorporated as ACCO in 1922)
-
- L. C. Smith and Brothers Typewriter Company formed (became
Smith Corona Company in 1926)
- 1904
- Three-ring binder patented by Irving Piff Manufacturing
Company
-
- Human speech transmitted via radio waves by scientist
R. A. Fessenden
- 1905
- Star Furniture Company founded in Zeeland, Michigan (renamed
Herman Miller in 1923)
- 1906
- Stenotype machine invented by Ward Stone Ireland
-
- Photostat developed
-
- The Haloid Company founded to manufacture and sell photographic
paper (name changed to Xerox Corporation in 1961)
- 1907
- Telephotography inaugurated when Arthur Korn telegraphed
a photograph from Munich to Berlin, Germany
- 1908
- Olivetti founded by Camillo Olivetti
- 1909
- Bakelite, the first totally synthetic plastic, patented
1900-1909 || 1910-1919
|| 1920-1929 || 1930-1939
|| 1940-1949
1950-1959 || 1960-1969 ||
1970-1979 || 1980-1989 ||
1990-
This material was generously provided by the Cooper-Hewitt
National Design Museum.
Introduction || Birth and
Growth of the American Office || Office
Equipment
Office Organization ||
Global Office || Conclusion
Historical Timeline ||
Lesson Plans || Resources
|| Site Contents
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