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Washington, D.C., 1925. "Justice Department, Nat'l. Bureau of Identification." Filing fingerprints at the forerunner of today's FBI. View full size.
Lulu? You perhaps mean Louise Brooks?
[It's her common nickname, used by herself in fact, in her memoir Lulu in Hollywood. - tterrace]
The Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation was nothing to brag about. Almost anyone with connections could be a field agent, and the quality of the furniture in this photo reflects the Bureau's stature in the Federal bureauacy. Agents were poorly paid, poorly trained and had to depend on public transportation to get to the scene of the crime. Hoover changed all that, eventually turning a lowly haven for slackers into the world's greatest criminal investigative force, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Hoover had just started as Director when this picture was taken. A few years down the line, a cigarette butt on the office floor could lead to a 10-day suspension!
I find the double-sided desks most interesting. I can see the woman on the far left has drawers, but unless the man in the middle has some on the opposite side from the way her desk is built, he just gets to work on the backside of the other guy's desk.
I couldn't imagine having to share my desk with somebody else. That's some mighty close quarters, there!
The room is rather bare, the desks look very old and scratched and have been placed next to the windows to take advantage of the natural lighting.
The Bureau did not seem to spend a lot of money on workplace amenities. Is that is a cigarette on the floor by the girl on the left (no ashtray on their desk!) although the men seem to have one.
Haven't you ever heard of Lulu Brooks jms? That hair cut and drop waist dress screams jazz age!
There they are looking for Anarchists, Bolsheviks and any others looking to overthrow the status quo.
The first thing I noticed was the unusual haircut and clothing style of the young woman on the left for the time. The other three people in this picture look very 1925, but the left-hand woman looks like she's out of 1960s London.
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