What is that water holder/stamp licker device actually called?

[A moistener. Often touted as being "sanitary" to distinguish from a sponge cup. -tterrace]

For the young whippersnappers in the audience, that rectangular ceramic or porcelain item on the desk in the foreground was a standard requirement in most offices of the mid-20th century. A little water was placed in the "tub", then the rolling cylinder was put back and it would be used to attach stamps (they were not self-sticking in those days) or to seal envelopes or to wet a finger for collating, etc. Very heavy, about 3 lbs. each, and if it wasn't cleaned often, it would start to smell yucky. They had 'em in all the offices I worked in. Today they're on e-Bay costing from about $10 to $40 each. Who knew?

Amazing how ubiquitous checker-board floors were in the 1940s-50s. Never understood this.

"Sitting there with her fancy earrings, fashionable scarf, and grease pencil. Make ME face the wrong side of the office, will you? We'll I'll show her. I'm going to sit right here and scribble all over this Shorpy photograph with an ink pen. PERMANENT ink! That'll show her."

All this information would fit on a thumb drive, accessible in microseconds.

It could do double duty as a barrette!

The speed at which this data could be accessed is not something these three ladies could even comprehend in their day.

The motto is from the founder of the newspaper, and goes on even longer but the editors did some fixup work.

I wonder what percentage of an inexpensive laptop's hard drive all that information would occupy.

Elbow in the stamp pad again?

The full quotation by Lamar, second President of the Republic of Texas (1838-41), is: "The cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy and, while guided and controlled by virtue, the noblest attribute of man. It is the only dictator that freemen acknowledge and the only security that freemen desire."