I have a multi-line phone, a keyboard and monitor (PC is under the desk) and . . . that’s pretty much it. Anything I need to do, I can do with those three devices. I imagine my counterpart from the pre-PC era had a lot more to clutter up their desktop space.
I’m only 33, but I’ll take a guess…
Writing implements, perhaps in a cup
Pencil sharpener
Eraser
Typewriter & accessories: letterhead paper, carbon paper, correction tape, etc.
Envelopes, sealing thingie with water & sponge tip
Stamps
Letter scale
Adding machine/calculator
Intercom
Phone
Phone message pad
Pads of paper, notebooks
Rolodex
Phone book
Stapler
Staple remover
Letter opener
In box/out box
Tape dispenser
Calendar/appointment book
Paper clips
File folders
Business cards
A nameplate
Accounting books
Rubber bands
Lamp
Stacks of forms
Dictaphone (sp?)
Blotter, blotting paper and inkwell?
My first job in an office was in 1970, not 50 years ago but I can tell you one thing I did have on my desk which would be unthinkable today: an ashtray.
I think that my dad had most of those things. He didn’t have a typewriter or its accessories, accounting books, postal scale, stamps, or an adding machine. If he had outgoing mail, I think that he had his secretary address, stamp (or feed it through the postal meter), and mail it. I don’t know about a dictaphone. Calculators weren’t even invented 50+ years ago. I got one for my birthday, in 1975, and it was a novelty.
He also had pictures of my mother and us kids.
Sure they were they were great hulking beasts. We had an old on in my HS computer room over 40 years ago. I doubt that many people had them on a desk, though.
I’m trying to remember my father’s office when I visited him 50 years ago. Definitely pads, a stapler, rubber bands, stuff like that, which we still have now. A simple telephone, perhaps with an intercom button. Maybe a typewriter, but that was mostly for secretaries. I remember an in basket and an out basket, and a big soft pad you put papers on. He often looked at plans. Rulers no doubt. And of course pictures.
If movies and TV shows set in white-collar environments from the 1940s all the way up to the 70s are to be believed, whiskey and lots of it.
ETA: and as Jabiru said, an ashtray.
I think there are several episodes of Starsky and Hutch which literally consist of 60 minutes of haggard-looking men in tweed suits sitting in offices with dark green carpet and fake wood paneling, drinking Scotch and smoking cigarettes.
My father, who worked at SSA headquarters from the 50s to the beginning of the 80s, told me about a fellow supervisor who kept “procedure” in a desk drawer. The “procedure” were porno magazines.
Paperweights, which actually had a function back when electric fans were the main method of keeping cool.
Mad Men on AMC has good office clutter from 1960. A lot of things executives use a computer for, were actually done by secretaries, so there might have been less clutter on a boss’ desk 50 years ago.
Stone tablet and chisel?
There were no electronic calculators yet, but there were mechanical adding machines
On top of the desk, it’d be a typewriter, an adding machine (depending on the job), a pencil holder with pencils/pens, etc., phone, perhaps a message pad (though that was what secretaries had), and, depending on how sloppy the worker was and company rules for a desk, papers and files he was working on.
Desk blotters were still pretty common, too, though people had moved on from fountain pens.
Other material like extra pens, rubber bands, rulers, etc. would be in the top desk drawer. The side drawers would have file folders (generally not hanging folders) that the worker needed regular access to.
Spindles. Remember “do not fold, spindle, or mutilate?” You need a spindle if you’re going to spindle something.
Not on the desk, but my father was a pocket protector guy in the 60s and they were very common then. His shirt was always white too.
I was in the workforce before computers or word processors were common, so I’m speaking from experience, not WAGing. What you had on your desk would totally depend on your job. For example, if you had a secretary, you wouldn’t have a typewriter, but she (probably) would. Even if you didn’t have a secretary, you still wouldn’t have a typewriter unless you needed one. Not every job required one. Same with adding machines, dictaphones, in/out boxes, and a lot of the other things mentioned.
As for some of the basic office supplies … I’m a modern IT worker with (pauses a moment to count) three computers at my desk. I still have paper clips, pens, tape, a stapler, staple remover, file folders, etc. because I still have to deal with paper occasionally.
I looked at those old adding machines, how the hell did they work?
If you were an executive, you didn’t have to worry about things like typewriters, as you had a secretary who took care of mundane stuff like that. As a matter of fact, the less stuff you had on your desk, the higher up you were on the old organizational chart.
A perfect executive desk would have the following:
Desk pad/blotter
In box and Out box
Desk set (generally consisting of matched pen and pencil, calendar holder, a pocket or two for paperclips and ashtray)
Photo of wife and kids
One modestly sized award, preferably for civic service rather than business accomplishment (the rest are scattered around your office)
Telephone and intercom box. In fact, multiple telephones were better, since they showed you had direct lines.
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Here at the World’s Second Best-Selling Jet Airplane Company, in 1979, you the young engineer shared a phone with two other guys.
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You had a picture of a pretty girl in a bikini under your glass desktop, or taped to the side of your toolbox.
That’s exactly what my dad, Executive Vice President of Operations, had on his desk when I was a kid in the 80’s. All that equipment and stuff was in his secretary’s office. He had a computer eventually but they had to put it in his closet, because why would you junk up one of those huge enormous executive desks with a computer?
To this day I can feel exactly how it felt to sit in his gigantic executive chair - it had these little brass vents in the back where the air would whoosh out of it when you sat down, and then it would lean back with a creeeeeek. I used to love to hang out in his office, nap on his office couch, and play with all the weird “Amalgamated Widget Industrial Products” keepsakeish paperweights. One of them was a robot, probably a welding robot I assume now, with all these moving parts. There were egrets in the pond outside the window, too.
Which is a good thing, as my mother used to go in and help him when big things were going down, and we were often there until 2 in the morning. Corner office has its responsibilities. When Dad went on business trips I used to kiss him before he left for all the days he wouldn’t be home. When he went to China that was forty kisses. 