In his 1917 novel The Job Sinclair Lewis makes note of a group of ambitious young clerks who work in the offices at Pemberton - "the greatest manufactory of drugs and toilet articles in the world" - and who sat at "shiny, flat-topped desks in rows".1 And you're all currently thinking, yeah... and... ??? ....... and... while that may be a valid response today, in 1917 ambitious young clerks sitting at rows of "shiny, flat-topped desks" were, when not a revolution, then a relative novelty, and
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