Western Union Teletypes OWI Photographs by Esther Bubley

These are photographs taken by Esther Bubley for the Office of War Information. They are in the "Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information Black and White Negatives" collection of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division . They are all in the public domain (as are the versions of them here).

In each case the version linked-to is a full resolution PNG that I have created from the original TIFF downloaded from the L of C. Regrettably, for this series of photographs the highest-resolution digital versions available from the Library of Congress are not very high resolution. Since the Library of Congress URLs have changed at least once, instead of citing the URL of the original image, I'll cite the call number.

[click image to view larger] Reading Tape, 1943 "Washington, D.C. Miss Genie Lee Neal reading a perforated tape at the Western Union telegraph office" Call Number: LC-USW3- 032334-E [P&P]. June, 1943.

[click image to view larger] Reading Tape, 1943 Washington, D.C. Genie Lee Neal and Patricia Kaufman are checking the perforated tape at the Western Union telegraph office." Call Number: LC-USW3- 032343-E [P&P] June, 1943.

[click image to view larger] Pasting Up a Telegram, 1943 "Washington, D.C. Pasting up a telegram at the Western Union telegraph office." Call Number: LC-USW3-032345-E [P&P]. June, 1943.

[click image to view larger] Operators, Baltimore Office, 1943 "Washington, D.C. Doris and Dorothy Bell send and receive telegrams from the Baltimore circuit at the Western Union telegraph office." Call Number: LC-USW3- 032344-E [P&P]. June, 1943.

[click image to view larger] Operators, , 1943 "Washington, D.C. Jean Smith sending a Western Union telegram on the teleprinter to New York." Call Number: LC-USW3- 032196-E [P&P] June, 1943. (Note: A nearly identical view appears as LC-USW3- 032191-E [P&P].

[click image to view larger] Switchboard and Typing Reperforators, 1943 "Washington, D.C. Muriel Pare, a switching clerk at the Western Union telegraph office." Call Number: LC-USW3- 032342-E [P&P]. June, 1943.

[click image to view larger] Switchboard and Typing Reperforators, 1943 "Washington, D.C. Miss Kathryne Lister, a switching clerk at the Western Union telegraph office" Call Number: LC-USW3- 032337-E [P&P]. June, 1943.

[click image to view larger] Switchboard, 1943 [untitled; clearly the same switchboard as above] Call Number: LC-USW3- 032348-E [P&P]. June, 1943.

[click image to view larger] Pneumatic Tubes, 1943 "Washington, D.C. Miss Helen Ringwald works with the pneumatic tubes through which messages are sent to branches in other parts of the city for delivery." Call Number: LC-USW3- 032347-E [P&P]. June, 1943. While these are not Teletypes, of course, they are in a Western Union office and are being used to transmit telegrams. Besides, pneumatic tubes are fun.

[click image to view larger] Pneumatic Tubes, 1943 "Washington, D.C. Miss Helen Ringwald works with the pneumatic tubes through which messages are sent to branches in other parts of the city for delivery." Call Number: LC-USW3- 032351-E [P&P] June, 1943. The version in the thumbnail here is from a print and, unlike most of the digitizations in this collection, is reasonably high resolution. A version exists taken directly from the negative, but ironically it is much lower resolution. Here it is anyway: 8d30861u.png.

[click image to view larger] Pneumatic Tubes, 1943 "Washington, D.C. Miss Helen Ringwald works with the pneumatic tubes through which messages are sent to branches in other parts of the city for delivery." Call Number: LC-USW3- 032356-E [P&P]. June, 1943.

[click image to view larger] Pneumatic Tubes, 1943 Washington, D.C. Mrs. Eva Poovey working with pneumatic tubes from which telegrams are taken at the Western Union telegraph office." Call Number: LC-USW3- 032333-E [P&P]. June, 1943.