Untitled (women in office working at typewriters) c. 1950

Editor: This photographic negative by Lucian and Mary Brown shows women in an office setting using typewriters. It feels almost ghostly because of the inverted tones. What do you see in this piece? Curator: The image speaks volumes about the material culture of office work. Look at the typewriters, the desks, even the floral wallpaper. They represent a specific era and the labor involved in producing documents. How does this image challenge our understanding of "women's work" at the time? Editor: It makes me think about how much unseen labor goes into the systems we take for granted. Curator: Precisely. And the photographic process itself, creating a negative, adds another layer to that idea of revealing the hidden aspects of production and consumption.