(Exhibition text in English, referring to a QR code in the exhibition)
The Modern Office
When typewriters are introduced at the end of the 19th century, using one in your work is associated with status and prestige. Clerical work is a male profession with relatively high status. As typewriters become increasingly common, enormous offices spaces are filled with female typists working in deafeningly noisy surroundings. Being a clerk or a secretary becomes a low-paid profession for women.
Unlike factories, offices are clean workplaces. This makes office work acceptable to middle-class women. Some clerical work also requires a higher level of education. The office becomes the first workplace for many young urban women, and provides an opportunity for them to earn their own money.
A few objects
Telephone with rotary dial and line switch. The rotary dial is necessary for the transition to automatic switchboards in the 1920s. The automatic switchboards could work around the clock and did not require higher wages – as opposed to the switchboard operators. Time clock from AB Borgs Söners Fabriker and calculator from O. E. Olsson’s paint shop, both located in Lund.