Western Electric Christmas party of 1925 -- 2023 Edition.

Colorized version

I wish I knew if 28 was ever convicted for the murder of 26.

Link to the 2021 version of this thread, the only one I could find with a DL search.

30 loved to be DP’d by 35 and 24

13, 35, 39, and 47 are invited to the after at my garçonnière in town.

24 lives as a quite spinster lady in his evenings.

Number 6 was my great-great uncle!

He died in 1964 never having married. I have a pocket watch that belonged to him. I think he was gay, but no one (alive) in the family ever knew for sure. It wasn't something they would talk about...

What a seductress R30 is! Right in front and making love to the camera.

Unbeknownst to her bosses, her résumé included stag films and "French" postcards.

I didn't mean to tag R30! I meant #30.

FYI - Western Electric manufactured exchange equipment and phones for the Bell System, which was broken-up by the government in 1983.

This was the Advent calendar at the hilltop sanitarium I was in one holiday season! You would flip their faces to get your evening psych meds.

Twenty Seven is Blythe Danner.

Twenty eight is Tammy Grimes.

Nineteen is Kathleen Widdoes.

Number 25 is Tobey Maguire.

Miss 18 crouched down by the desk seems game for anything, even scat. Or motorboating her face into the back of Miss 27's Stanwyck-like hairdo in front of her, if that's the only other option (i.e., if Mr. 25 isn't around or interested in being serviced during coffee breaks!).

Ahhh, typos. I meant above to refer to Mr. 35, not hefty Miss 25! ;o

Thank you, OP, it wouldn't be Christmas without it.

I think they'd be pleased to know that they became famous somewhere.

#37, "petty cash clerk" George Morose, is expelled from the party for lying about how all the Secret Santa gifts wound up in the trunk of his car.

....

41 and 42 (both men) look like a couple, possibly. 41 has his arm around 42.

47 looks like he's possibly a psychopath.

12 looks like she's the supervisor of the secretaries. She's expressing dominance.

30 does look like a party girl.

6 has nice hair. Why is he holding his right hand like that?

4 has got her hair in the same style as 30, but 4 doesn't look like a party girl.

31: why is he standing with his face behind a tree branch?

41 and 42 are definitely screwing around.

29 looks like a stick in the mud. She doesn't like Number 30 Party Girl and sits with her back facing Party Girl.

26 hates her job.

I want to fool around with 35 and 36.

33 is creepy. Why is he hiding behind 35?

12 and 19 are ball breaking lesbians.

What about 25? She's got her arm resting on Party Girl 30's shoulder.

37 thinks he's hot shit with his wide stance and cigar, standing out front and center.

43 seems like he might be an OK guy. Keeps to himself, but if you need to know what's going on in this stupid office, you can ask him.

[quote] 37 thinks he's hot shit with his wide stance and cigar, standing out front and center.

R26 = Stacy, Fredrica Bimmel's friend

[quote] Freddie was so happy for me when I got this job at the bank. Toaster giveaways and Barry Manilow on the speakers all day. She thought it was such hot shit. What did she know? Big dummy

DL should start a GoFundMe to raise $$$ for a movie about these people

Always such a pleasure to see handsome 35. He looks like he has a decent bulge too.

I'd like to have a drink with oil can woman. She looks like she'd be fun to talk to and know all the gossip.

47 is versatile, smooth body, dirty mouth, not affectionate but not complicated either.

[quote] I'd like to have a drink with oil can woman.

Why don't you give her #?

OP Thank you I was the original OP the first year. It always makes my day when I see one of you post it!!!

19 looks like Kylie Jenner time travelled.

Who is the mousiest office girl?

I think 2 is the mousiest girl.

Why are so many of them looking in the wrong direction?

[quote]DL should start a GoFundMe to raise $$$ for a movie about these people

Or at least a Broadway musical.

MISS SAIGON was also inspired by a photograph.

Not this photo again. Try to come up with a new idea, OP.

That is the saddest Christmas tree I've ever seen. Was it the Great Depression?

Oh, 1925. Therefore, no excuse.

R41: Not pictured: Charlie Brown, who selected the Christmas tree.

29 doesn’t actually work for Western Electric. She escaped from St Elizabeths - the DC insane asylum at the time - showed up in the office one day and just started randomly filing stuff and answering the phone. She’s been adding arsenic to the water cooler, a bit more each day.

Lol, R43. It does look like a Charlie Brown tree.

After the party, some of the younger, wilder set in the office - you can be sure 30 was among them - headed off to the Krazy Kat Klub.

I was looking at that photo this morning and it suddenly hit me that things just aren't quite "normal" in that office... it's as if some of those people were aliens and were posing as regular human beings/Americans. They tried to be festive (like everyone else) with a Xmas tree, but sort of failed. They wear the right clothes, get appropriate hair cuts and styles, but none seem to really fit the person. They have no real housekeeping skills, the messy desk on the left, crumpled paper littering the floor, what's with the oil can on the floor?

I think R26 is the leader of the aliens and has just spied something setting off her radar for wariness.

The photo would have been gold to a Dr Who script writer (David Tenant years) or for an X-Files episode in the first two seasons...

The Marcel wave was a really ugly hairstyle.

How do they ladies keep their hair shiny? The same pomade as the gents?

For a century old picture, the people look modern, not ancient.

No. 13 has a crazed look in his eyes. He was recently let out of the asylum. No. 6 is the most handsome.

[quote]For a century old picture, the people look modern, not ancient.

But the fact is

Everything today is thoroughly modern

Check your personality

Everything today makes yesterday slow

Better face reality

"It's not insanity"

Says Vanity Fair

"In fact

It's stylish to raise your skirts

And bob your hair!"

Have you seen the way

They kiss in the movies?

Isn't it delectable?

Painting lips and pencil-lining your brow

Now is quite respectable

Men say

"It's criminal what women'll do"

What they're forgetting is

This is 1922!

41 and 42 pinch each other's butts and grab each other's crotches when no one is looking.

39 is Lenin's identical twin.

Svetlana poisoned the punch and killed them all off.

R50, especially in the colorized version posted somewhere above. If there had been a film version, similarly colorized, they would look shockingly modern, like 21st-century people in 1920s costumes. At least, that’s my reaction when I see color films of street scenes from the ‘30s and ‘40s, which are common on youtube. Fashions in clothes and hair and fashions in what’s considered good-looking change, but humans look the same as ever.

When DLers say, as they often do, “people used to look older”, it’s true but it’s not because their faces aged earlier. It’s all clothes, hair, makeup and demeanor, plus the aging effect of black and white photography.

#35 is the only one I'd fuck IF I could back 98 years in order to do so.

Better link to the number picture.

R56 - “When DLers say, as they often do, “people used to look older”, it’s true but it’s not because their faces aged earlier.”

Not true. People’s looks did literally age earlier for a multitude of reasons, including but not limited to diet, lifestyles, medical/scientific improvements, as well as the evolutionary process itself. I read an entire article abt this, will post when I find it. It’s not just the hairstyles, clothes and makeup.

Thanks, OP, for the reminder to change my desktop art to Western Electric!

29 looks like the wild one.

i agree with you r59. even just the fact that smoking was ubiquitous indoors and out everywhere in that era meant that people were inevitably going to be affected in terms of their skin.

The women’s clothes looked so uncomfortable and hard to take care of, and their hair…even the few women with pretty faces look awful.

I think smoking was not quite as common in the 20s as it would become in the 40s and 50s.

R64 correct.

Smoking in public for women only became acceptable in the 1920s.

Along with wearing short skirts (just below the knee!), bobbing their hair, and wearing makeup.

R41, all Christmas trees looked like that back then. In fact, even into the 1950s, they looked like someone had cut down the first pine tree he saw in the backyard and dragged it into the house.

15 and 17 love organizing the office potlucks. they sort of work as a team.

[quote]The women’s clothes looked so uncomfortable and hard to take care of, and their hair…even the few women with pretty faces look awful.

If this were in the Midwest, the people would be a lot more attractive -- German/Swedish/Norwegian mix with a pinch of Irish/Scottish/English..

Ten is reaching down to yank it a little because of his unimpeded view of 42, who's in another department and for whom he's got a rager.

[quote] If this were in the Midwest, the people would be a lot more attractive -- German/Swedish/Norwegian mix with a pinch of Irish/Scottish/English..

So, where was this photo taken? I've never heard of midwestern (US) people being especially attractive.

We know that the boss isn't having an affair with 17. Too homely.

Good for Svetlana for not following the unflattering Marcel wave trend.

I love the pic at r46. The guys are cute and the woman pointing her toe has a ballet feet. I’d love to go back in time and hang out with them.

19 = Johnny Depp

45 = Clarence from It's a Wonderful Life

R73 VPL on the one dude.

From what little can be seen of 38, he seems very handsome as well, in an Eric Stolz kind of way. I don't know why I've never noticed him before.

R70, photo was taken in Washington, DC.

Words never spoken in the 1920's

The tree is so beautiful.

37 looks like a mob boss and 35 looks like one of his henchmen, complete with broken nose.

23 looks like she may have eventually become a grand society lady.

Which of the lesbians has Svetlana turned down (besides 28)?

They all look like they’re wearing depression era scratchy wool garments.

The stock market didn't crash for almost another four years, R81. Are you saying this crew was ahead of the curve?

R81, most of the women’s dresses are probably rayon or silk. Some might be wool crepe. The men’s suits would be wool gabardine or flannel (not the scratchy kind). All the overcoats would be wool, with the women’s coats trimmed in various cheap furs. The men’s shirts and underwear are cotton. The women’s underwear is cotton or silk. Most of the women seem to be wearing silk stockings, a considerable expense for a working girl made necessary by the short hemlines of 1920s. No synthetic fibers (unless you count rayon) in 1925.

It's December. Some of them might have worn woolen undies, but the office was probably overheated and stuffy with steam-heated radiators.

47 rode 39’s thick cock that night.