A dictation machine designed to be a transcription or “secretarial” model, like the Dictaphone below, from the 1930s, was usually fitted to a roll-around cabinet, and was intended to stand next to a typing table, which itself was a piece of equipment specifically designed for women secretaries. Typists or “transcriptionists,” as the manufacturers called them,  retrieved cylinders from their bosses, or if they were in a typing pool, they selected them at random from a central distribution rack.

If the dictator had done his job properly, the recording would begin with an address and salutation. Edison and Dictaphone also provided slips of paper to be put into the cylinders, on which instructions could be written.  The rest of the recording would be typed verbatim, but often the typists had to correct the dictator’s grammar or “fix” awkward sentences.

Transcriptionists sometimes learned to use their machines in trade schools, or else were often trained by the company representatives who visited from time to time to replenish supplies and service machines. The equipment companies emphasized that knowledge of machine transcription was a valuable skill that could advance a woman’s career (as compared to the “efficiency” that was pitched to male users).

The final stage in the process was the return of finished correspondence to the writer for editing and disposal of the used cylinders. As the typists in the typing pools of the bigger companies finished with their cylinders, office boys collected them and took them to a room where a “shaver,” a lathe-like machine, resurfaced the cylinders for re-use. A cylinder could be used and shaved dozens of times before it got too thin to use, and the wax shavings could even be returned to the companies to be remade into new cylinders.