It's December and it is time for our annual look at the Western Electric Christmas Party of 1925

Love this holiday tradition x

OMG, Thank You for this. Brings back such great memories. Lets dig in . This tradition should be amended to use the day's current political climate to judge and asses this photo. Who is the non-binary trans identifying individual?

Me too.

I think it's finally fair to say everyone in this photo is quite dead.

Not in our hearts, r4...

This is the first year I am seeing Drew Barrymore at the office party. Anyone else spot her?

The Gin Man Cometh. But WHEEEENNNNNN!!!

None of the women or men look like Drew Barrymore to me. Why don't you just tell us which one, R6?

Post the numbered version. We'll save lots of words and get right to the dissection and fun.

I just realized that this photo was taken December 24, 1925, just before the swaggering big bald boss tossed his cigar butt, which hit the tree and ignited it. The immediate conflagration killed everyone in the room and spread into the factory floor.

"The Western Electric Christmas Party of 1925." The photographer had just walked out when the tragedy occurred, preserving this eerie moment of lost possibility and impending searing pain and anguish.

The numbered picture to help ID who you are talking about.

The colorized version.

Cute #27 pointing to her ring. Did she get engaged?

#25 looks “special” or drunk

R45 is the bitchy office queen who's trying to figure out which of the gentlemen would be up for some nibbling on the Love Newton in the mailroom after they've all been sufficiently liquored up.

I meant #45^

#34 is publicizing the Go Gos about 50 years ahead of the band's formation.

Those Western Electric guys were pretty prescient.

#41 is definitely the guy who hid the camera in the women's restroom to watch them pee.

#35 starred in stag films.

They didn't call it porn then.

The colorized version only emphasizes how filthy that floor is.

Whoa, Xmas trees looked cool as HELL back then! What type of tree is that? 🎄

They're all giving "face"!

If R6 likes Drew, it's #4.

If R6 hates Drew, it's #25.

That guy on the right rear row with a smirk....you know that queen knows ALL the good tea

I would suck the guy on the left rear row (7? I can't see the red ink) until his head caved in.

Well, the colorizing is certainly flattering to Svetlana, r12!

35-42 group looks like the office lavender mafia

It must have been tough for a woman in the ‘20s to look even passably attractive, sack dresses, and horrendous hairstyles.

#36 and #38 are the cite office boys. Do you think they gave up their bussy to the highest bidders in office?

11 will be rouging her knees later tonight.

My Christmas Eve Fuck List Circa 1925

42

31, because I feel sorry for him.

47

6

34, also because I feel sorry for him.

I’d like to see 6, 9, and 13 in a 3-way.

^^^^^^^^^^***

And throw 10 into the mix.

This is the best thing, by far, that has happened to me this week. First of all. The numbered version is genius. Thank you. Second of all, COLORIZED! I don't remember that from last year. Again. I'm a drinker and puff weed at night, so you can't hold me to much. I'm going back up to savor all of your witty musings.

Could #12 br MTF?

I don't remember the colorized version either, R34, but I skipped a couple years of commemorating the photo as I was living in the endless series of covid threads!

Is it really true that 32 & 36 were a hot couple??

42 is a big dick sissy bottom, unapologetic member of the local Garden Club. Fastidious dresser. Can deep throat a traffic cone.

They would ALL be well over 120 years old now. They are ALL long gone.

The FATTY ARBUCKLE one died in 1958.

[quote]They are ALL long gone.

r39 see r5

I always had the hots for #13.

Everything that R38 said is factual. Especially that last bit. The whole thing.

Count the queens, boys!

The colorized version I posted last year, also along with this Covid version with everyone wearing a mask. I didn't create any of them just saved them from a Reddit thread.

The Western Electric Christmas Party thread from 2021

The Western Electric Christmas Party thread from 2020

I'm not a fan of the colorized version but I do commend them for giving ghoulish #41 the gray skin he deserved.

#23 resembles a young Eleanor Roosevelt and #17 a young Hillary Swank. #25 is definately special, probably the mail clerk.

The celebrities I remember from the past are: #27 Blythe Danner, #19 Johnny Depp, #12 Chloe Sevigny.

Thanks for posting this, OP!

My all-time favorite is #28. She just hates Svetlana. She’s seething. And she’s awfully opinionated for someone in such a wrinkled dress.

Fatty Arbuckle is holding a big pair of eyeglasses in his hand. He’s vain. I never noticed the glasses in previous years.

28 is Rosyln Carter

[quote] Who is the non-binary trans identifying individual?

Ahem!

I’m Ella #12 from Paralegal who just has to do SOMETHING with my awkwardly damaged four-fingered right hand, which I use then to grab onto Myrtle #20 from Sales’ shoulder to convey the impression I’m expressing same-sex Yuletide affection towards her—although she’s frigid.

#26 Is, of course Helen Lawson. This was the only non showbiz job Helen ever had, and she was fired after this party. She supplied crates and crates of Helenesque and the party quickly devolved into a filthy gritty sexual orgy. Management was not happy and Helen was fired.

#30, the good-time girl, couldn’t be looking more directly into the camera. She seems so alive if you zoom in and really see her eyes.

And if #11’s mother were to see this photo with her daughter wearing that fireman’s hat, she’d lose it. “Are you actually trying NOT to find a husband at that office, putting on that silly hat and not even looking at the camera!”

R 47 You're being generous with your kindness to Eleanor R, but I can see it. Can we discuss #26? Every year I look at her and want to slap her across the face. All fussy and dramatic. Woe is me. Like Claire Danes in My So Called Life but set in the 20s.

I don't get it. What's the rumpus? You "musical" boys ...

I'm going to order a print of this from Shorpy and hang it on my wall. I'm serious.

In the 1990s and early 2000s I worked in a company in NYC that I used to say gave off a 1950s vibe. There was still an overall office culture that could be emotionally traced back to this era. So, it's easy for me to imagine myself in that photo or to imagine how they felt and experienced the work day.

I know, Mary!

The two questions I have are...

Is #31 a ghost? An employee of Western Electric offices past? He seems to be almost transparent behind the Christmas tree.

And what is it that sits on top of #34's head? I'd say it's a sex toy of some sort, but that makes no sense. One more question, what do the words, "GO GO" above that device atop his bald head reference?

#12's name is Tootsie.

R60, it's a manual traffic sign. If you want to see one used as a sex toy, your best bet is the Days Inn in Glendale.

I bet she lived quite a life!

I would make ends meet as a student working temp jobs in NYC and Boston. I worked a lot for one agency who would make a "grand gesture" with a pitiable joyless office party for temps, which didn't make any sense because we didn't know each other. Furthermore, it was a good idea to attend and be nicey nicey because then you'd get the bookings when you needed them. Cherry on the fruit cake, they would offer all temps a wrapped "present" which was a worthless piece of Chinese junk. Meanwhile these agencies' standard cut was 50% up to 75% of the fee paid by the corporation for the temp. The bank or law firm would be billed $45 an hour and I'd get $15. Capitalism!

#45 is the office “wit and wag” and a confirmed bachelor. Always up for a laugh. He entered the company at 21 and never socializes with any of his colleagues out of the office. No one knows anything about his life.

I like #18's hairdo. It's short and cute, yet not in the marcel waves that almost all of the other women are wearing. She also seems quite giddy with delight about this office Christmas gathering.

Number 19 looks more like Lucy Hale than Johnny Depp. 22 looks like Charlie Sheen in drag.

Why is gentleman #24 sitting on the floor with the ladies?

There is nothing on #34's head. It is a penis shaped mercury thermometer hanging on the wall.

#24 is the office nobody/nice guy? ^

Bald-headed #39 looks like he'll throw you a mean fuck with his big dick, of which he's mighty proud.

Shorpy uploaded this photo a decade or two ago now, and it's been widely circulated. Has no one recognized their parents or grandparents or some other relatives or friends in it? DL craves WHET stories.

#45 is Clarence from It’s a Wonderful Life.

Do we know what city it's in. The City Directory for 1925 might give some clues for sleuthing.

I'm triggered because there are no people of color in the photo.

R74, a few of them have "Portuguese" ancestry that's actually black. Take Svetlana, for instance ...

R70 I agree!! Along with 35. Both mean fucks.

[quote]I think it's finally fair to say everyone in this photo is quite dead.

Judging by their apparent ages and considering the life expectancy in 1925, it's been fair to say that for 20+ years. Not only are these people all long dead in 2022, but their kids are mostly if not all probably dead too.

R60 # 31 is Hot. Wish I could go back and give him a merry christimas.

[Quote]Not only are these people all long dead in 2022, but their kids are mostly if not all probably dead too.

R77 I'll agree with mostly dead. Some of the young women might've had children in the 1930s and, perhaps, early 1940s. Some of the men might've fathered children even up to the 1980s. Anthony Quinn, for example, fathered his last child at age 81.

You know that #45 was still fathering children right into his 90s. What a stud!

Sadly, number 42 later succumbed to the world's first case of monkeypox

Number 24 being non binary chose to sit with the women and close to the gay mafia

R62, I'll say, "okay"... but why would there be a miniature traffic signal in the office and why is he wearing it on his head?! I mean, no one looks like they've been imbibing during this soiree.

Wha you say? Hic!

They’re thinking: we managed to survive a worldwide pandemic + a brutal land war in Europe just a few years ago….and we can’t work from home and we can’t drink! What a life…

You guys just try to guess what #30 got up to after the party with the oil can, the teddy bear, and #6.

[quote]28 is Rosyln Carter

Oh, dear.

Svetlana is wondering how many more times she's gonna need to blow the Immigration guy before she gets her green card.

Svetlana just came from a probation review with #45. He told her her needed to review her performance then grabbed her by the tit!

[quote]What type of tree is that? 🎄

Charlie Brown.

Remember those very sparse "Charlie Brown" Christmas trees? You hardly every see them anymore. This one is quite the spindly sapling.

#42 certainly looks like the kind of gay guy clueless people back then would describe as "sensitive, thoughtful, tender, cultured, etc ...," but would actually be known as a voracious pass-around-bottom among us who know about such things.

#42 is pre-lubed

Pre WW2 immigration was much easier than Svetlana was led to believe. She's been a legal citizen since her second week of employment, but NOBODY is to let on a whiff of that fact, for reasons well known to them all.

[quote] Do we know what city it's in. The City Directory for 1925 might give some clues for sleuthing.

December 1925. "Washington, D.C. -- Western Electric Co. group."

[quote]#42 certainly looks like the kind of gay guy clueless people back then would describe as "sensitive, thoughtful, tender, cultured, etc ...,"

Notice the candy cane phallic symbol he's fondling.

Then is #41 contemplating an act of surprise anal?

#41 has claimed him for the after-party. That hand on the shoulder says "all mine." The good-time girl with the oil can is going to try to tag along, but they'll put her in cab.

R6 here. The numbered photo does help.

R8 I was referring to Drew Barrymore #20 as Drew Barrymore.

I am always amazed at people's taste in who they would have sex with. So different than mine, which means more for me. In my opinion, hair or no hair, R39 has the best face and is the most attractive of all the men in the picture.

[quote] The good-time girl with the oil can is going to try to tag along, but they'll put her in cab.

The oil can was how he got pre-lubed.

It's long been DL consensus that #39 is the sexiest.

I am R11 & R12 which posted the numbered and colorized version, previously I had posted that those photos came from the Reddit thread but I was wrong. The numbered photo came from one of our own DLer's that took the time to create the numbered photo. They posted it in the 2020 version of this thread as anonymous but they deserve the credit for creating it, I just saved it. The colorized version comes from Shorpy and was posted in the comments section, the creator said he spend hours on colorizing it over much of a year.

I am old and I guess my memory failed me, hopefully some other people will save those photos for the years to come as I am not sure how much longer I will be around to post them.

I love the trifecta of Johnny Depp, Drew Barrymore and Kurt Cobain.

Aw, R102. Thanks sweetie.

For context

R102 I hope you're OK? Thank you for posting them X

Here’s hoping the folks at this party bought Western Electric stock and their great-grandchildren are enjoying the dividends no matter what company’s name is on the paper now.

If you want to bring yourself down from the high you experience after looking at the Christmas party photo, just take a look at the Western Electric photo album at R105. Those are some grim, grim factory photos. Pictures of women sorting little screws all day. The people in that Christmas photo were living the high life.

I love this thread every year. And I came here to say That is the saddest-looking Christmas tree I think I have ever seen.

Hello...Virginia?

#46 was living a different kind of high life.

#18 eerily time traveled from that OTHER favorite office Christmas party -- the one with Miss Polanski of Accounts Receivable, Miss Wong of Mimeograph and Miss De La Hoya of Petty Cash.

I am so happy you have revived this thread. I am the original OP for the tradition. I wish I could remember the first year I posted this. It had to be after 2000. Does anyone remember?

Anyway, last night I was going to ask DL when we should start it.

I have to confess it's a gift to me every year to see you carry on the tradition.

[quote]Pictures of women sorting little screws all day. The people in that Christmas photo were living the high life.

Svetlana has the look of someone who has to sort little screws all day, poor thing.

This tradition is like DL's own Christmas holiday party.

I say this every year but 41 and 42 have an arrangement.

#24 must have been the office passive bottom. They must have said - why don't you sit on the floor Reginald - and he did exactly as told. He is the only man sitting. He must have like office gossip with the girls. I can imagine #35 actively pushing him to his knees - down! - before the photo was snapped.

Everyone just assumes #37 is the boss. I mean I guess he is. He’s out in front. But it’s not 100% certain.

There’s really an [italic]alarming[/italic] number of men in that pic I want to fuck me!

Tubes

I AM SURPRISED THEY WERE ABLE TO CLEAR ALL THE SMOKE FROM THE ROOM TO GET SUCH A CLEAR GROUP PORTRAIT.

I WAS BORN THAT SUMMER. IN THEORY I COULD HAVE BEEN HELD BY ONE OF THEM WHEN THIS PHOTOGRAPH WAS SNAPPED. WHAT I REMEMBER MOST ABOUT THE '20S WAS THE SCENTS PEOPLE WORE.THEY DON'T SELL ANY LIKE THAT ANYMORE.

MR. 37 WOULD BE CONSIDERED MORBIDLY OBESE IN THOSE DAYS.. MORBIDLY, AND HOW!

MRS. 29 REMINDS ME OF MY AUNT GERTIE. TOO DRUNK TO STAND UP MIDWAY THROUGH A CHRISTMAS PARTY WAS VERY MUCH LIKE AUNT GERTIE.

Sad as that Christmas tree looks, it's pretty typical of Christmas trees of that era. Before Christmas trees became a crop, they were often cut down in the back yard or nearby woods.

#39 later took #36 and #47 into the supply closet where he made them get on their knees and service his thick cock and big balls.

#38 is probably the most photogenic (with some competition from #6 and #39); too bad that porcine stogie-fiend is hogging his air space.

R120, I wouldn't have minded being co-founder/inventor Elisha Gray's office boy.

Hawt hipster ^

R28 they’d just had a cataclysmic world war less than a decade prior. Give them a break.

R4 my last surviving grandparent was yet to be born at the time of this photo. And she’s very old now, could realistically go of natural causes any year. Makes you think.

In a previous year (please don't ask :), in one of the Shorpy threads, someone actually traveled to the location of the photo. It's still an office, apparently still for the current iteration of Western- Electric, but they weren't able to get very far due to security. They were able to take some photos though, and it appears the original door, frame, and transom from our beloved photo are intact!

That being said, I hope #35 has rested and filled back up from last year, because I'm ready to drain him dry again!

R129 I am sure he is ready to go. He probably has a frigid wife at home who definitely doesn't want more than the six kids they already have running about. He's probably forced to beat off into a gym sock in some dark, cold corner of the basement to naughty black & white photos he picked up in France seven years prior during the war illuminated only by the stub of his lit Lucky Strike. Huffing and puffing, zipper down, belt clanking, he grunts out a load. He wrings the sock out in the rusty basement wash basin and tosses it over a pipe to dry while securely placing the well-worn envelop, with "ooh la la" stamped on the front, that holds his pics back in its hiding spot between some old bricks. Disguising his still swollen junk, he tucks it under the waistband of his boxers, slouches back up the steps to his screaming kids, harried wife and boiled meat dinner.

[quote]Svetlana has the look of someone who has to sort little screws all day, poor thing.

Oh, Lana knows all about screws ... but not the metal kind.

From the look on #24's face, I'd venture a guess that #25's pussy stinks.

#12 gives me Charlotte Clymer, autogynephilia "sex pest" vibes.

It's official, the anti-trans troll have now invaded EVERY thread

Mmmm #35 can have a go with me too once he's done with you tarts

Relax, R134, we've been giving #12 the "that's a man, baby" treatment forever.

[quote]I think it's finally fair to say everyone in this photo is quite dead.

Well, there's definitely something dead between Dorothy's legs...

or she has another yeast infection

Hurry up and take the damn pic - I can't stand squatting next to her!

I think I'm getting a crush on #40 now.

Which ones grew up in orphanages? And now have made good, and hold office jobs in a respectable big company.

#25 definitely likes the shapes that aren't circles

Which one's a madcap heiress on the down low?

R141 I suspect #17

And to think all their roles are now done by one intern using an Excel spreadsheet.

That’s progress!

Mary Louise #25 has a crotch odor that no intern could ever duplicate...

What's up with that sour bitch at #28?

[quote] What's up with that sour bitch at #28?

That has been discussed ad nauseam for years - she hates Svetlana (#26) with a white hot passion because she (#28) believes Svetlana is the office slut. Deep down, she’s a little bit jealous.

That's just a guess, r146.

#29 insisted on sitting in front since she bragged to everyone that she spent all of last week's paycheck getting her hair done.

20 - James Spader in a previous life as a woman.

I think I would have liked "break the rules" number 30 as a coworker.

R149, I just took a look at #20 and laughed out loud. The resemblance is so fleeting but spot-on. And #12 the future Chloe Sevigny really has her claw on him. #12 might also be the future Drew Barrymore.

Fascinating photos, there's so much going on. As another poster said, I'm surprised that nobody has ever come forward and identified a grandparent or great-grandparent in this photo.

A few of the younger people in this photo could've lived as long as the 1990s.

I so wish Sondheim had written a musical based on this photograph.

I wonder if we could get Sara Porkalob to star as Svetlana in a holiday musical based on this photo.

I wonder if #12 lived long enough to meet the most beautiful of her descendants.

R17 seems like a light skinned Black woman. Is it possible that Black people would be working in an office in the 1920s in the then very Southern city of Washington DC or could she be passing?

6 is a pleasant southern man, hung large. Not too bright but everyone loves him. Good family. Naturally bisexual and never really thought about it in his youth. Fucked all races and creeds. Nobody brought it up. Nobody would ever even think it possible.

Calmed down a lot now, in the city, with his pretty wife. They live off daddy's money, not his modest income.

R6 to me looks like a preppy villain from an 80s movie named Biff.

You are doing the reference to the numbered people incorrectly, dear. There is no hyperlink to the numbered photo. You are linking to other posts that have nothing to do with the example you want to show.

Doll R159, it's all so confusing. Relax.

For you youngsters, Western Electric made telephones and exchange equipment for The Bell System from the late 1800s until 1984, when the government broke them up. Also invented the Transistor and developed Solar Power.

35 is an amateur boxer who landed an office job. Fatty Arbuckle likes him because they both went to the school of hard knocks, unlike some of these fancy boys.

20 is hopelessly in love with 27.

1 is the daughter of the Big Boss who is just there for this party and can’t wait to get out of there.

11 has been trying to copy the hairstyle of her idol, Time Traveling Ginny at 18.

I think I’m going to start using this as my online profile pic.

R164 I was gonna say she has to be the office lez.

I’m gonna wishfully guess that 6 and 47 have something going but purposefully stationed themselves on opposite sides of the room so that no one gets on to them.

The reason 28 hates Sevtlana so much is that she just learned from one of the other gals that Svetlana, a recent immigrant with bad English, somehow lives in a house with running hot water, something 28’s family has yet to achieve.

# 25 looks as if she may know the way to Free Clinic

This is how I view the eldergay posters

One actual hottie (with flaws, but clearly dashing and representing the 60 but assumed to be 35 trope) thrown in the mix but honestly yep

#45 reminds me of Nigel Farage, smug looks and all.

Does Fatty Arbuckle have a twin growing above his eyebrow???????????

^He definitely has something there.

#46: HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I’m #45.

R173, we are all #45.

are #41 and #42 a couple possible signalling for help with the Candycane in his right hand - possibly a time machine to 80 years into the future?

Omg

After a few minutes Delores, centre, found she quite enjoyed having her boss' finger up her ass.

41 and 42 have a lovely little cottage on Fire Island that they run off to on weekends. 42 has an enormous schlong that 41 likes to jump on, and which slutty 30 Good Time Girl would like a piece of too, but she has the wrong equipment. However, she still drops by his desk to say hello and look at his crotch. 47 looks "special". 35 is bitter because he can't afford a suit coat as he lost it at the track. 24 likes to sit with the gals to discuss the latest movies and how fabulous Gloria Swanson is. 19 is having her "monthly visitor" and is angry that she had to plug it up with toilet paper. 12 is trying to cop a feel of 20's booby but 20 only has eyes for 27 who is recovering from a massive hangover from some bad bathtub gin served by Muzzy Von Hossmere at her fabulous Long Island estate. 27 was brought in as "entertainment" for the New York Yankees teammates who were invited at the last moment. Nobody likes 33 so they won't let him be seen. 32 wants to take that horse figure and shove it up the fat ass of 37 who stiffed 32 on his Christmas bonus. Swetlana at 26 is waiting for her next opium fix tonight.

Happy Christmas folks!

I think Svetlana is the charwoman and that’s why she looks so uncomfortable.