▲Dozens of young women found employment in typing pools, many taking their first tentative steps into the workplace.

▲A shorthand typist commanded a higher salary than their fellow copy typists.

▲Typists adhered to strict instructions on how to align a letter—company style was sacrosanct and it was vital to maintain the corporate image.

▲On average, training as a shorthand typist took a year, usually at a technical college.

▲There’s typing and there’s typing. But to be employed in a typing pool meant a woman also needed to be competent in shorthand.

▲Imagine the scene. It must have been deafening as generations of women tapped away for their livelihoods, honing a skill they’d have for life… or at least until they tied the knot and started a family.

▲If a typist blew it, it meant a new piece of paper and the laborious task of retyping an entire page.

▲With the arrival of the desktop Dictaphone, women remained at their desks for even longer periods while listening through the headphones to type out their work.

▲The rapid tat-tat-tat of numerous typists hammering away on their keyboards became a defining soundtrack of the burgeoning corporate age.

▲On the contrary, this was a world of strict time keeping, sharp shorthand skills, iron discipline, and light-fingered speed. There were few perks.

▲Early typewriters were large and clunky. Banks of these mechanical clatter boxes stood to smart attention on every desk.

▲Remember, back in those days there was no delete key to hit in case of a mistake.

▲The typing pool department was a feature of many large companies from the turn of the 20th century into the late 1980s.

▲In fact, the typing pool would have reminded many of a classroom interior, as desks were lined up in neat rows with all heads facing the front.

▲Typewriters were used Monday to Friday nine-to-five. That meant they needed to be regularly serviced and maintained by a dedicated team of mechanics. But a skilled shorthand typist was still expected to look after her own typewriter. A cleaning kit of two brushes—one for removing the rubber dust, the other to clean the typeface—was always near at hand.

▲The supervisor was always checking your progress. She’d cast a critical eye over the shorthand notes and the typing. The pages would then be submitted back to the author, who would sign the work off or make changes.

▲Armed with additional Pitman’s shorthand skills, they were constantly in demand, not least because the boss (always a man in those days) wanted to show they were important enough to dictate letters.

▲And your average typing pool was a place where rampant sexism often went unchallenged or was overlooked. Women's rights was still an abstract concept in most office environments.

▲The technique required in a typing pool was called “touch typing,” which meant the typist was forbidden to glance at the keys while she typed.

▲But the typing pool—also referred to as a secretarial pool—was not the place for anyone seeking a cushy number in a chatty atmosphere.

▲As working the proverbial nine-to-five took off in the 1950s, vacancies for skilled shorthand typists filled the classifieds.

▲Typing pools ranged in numbers depending on the size of the business: the bigger and more successful the company, the more typists.

▲Instead, the typist kept her eyes on her shorthand notebook, meaning she could work faster and more efficiently.

▲Tipp-Ex correction fluid, invented in 1951 by Bette Nesmith Graham, was a blessing—but only for individual letter corrections.

▲A supervisor, invariably stern and unblinking, would observe the speed and dedication of her youthful charges.

▲In those days, typewriters required an exact amount of pressure to give a nice clean, crisp, and legible end result. Long fingernails were out!

▲Typing skills were taught at school or college. It was a career path chosen by many girls.

▲As a shorthand typist you were expected to achieve 80 words per minute shorthand speed, no easy task!

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Did you know that the world record for typing the English alphabet from A-Z is 3.37 seconds? They probably weren't using one of these typewriters!

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The working day was perfunctory, and frankly harsh by today’s standards. For example, permission was needed in order to visit the toilet, and the absence was timed.

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Throughout much of the 20th century—and long before the digital revolution—generations of women found employment in typing pools. A strict and disciplined environment, the typing pool saw dozens of secretaries tapping out endless copy from shorthand notes, Monday to Friday from nine to five. It all seems so archaic today, but back then working in a typing pool provided a steady job with a reasonable salary. How times have changed!

Browse the gallery and take a nostalgic look at what life was like in the typing pool.