Common needs in 1948, most of the skills represented by the photographs shown in the photograph above have been taken over to one extent or another by the personal computer by year 2004. By then, and even much before, it was easier for most people to write and edit their own letters than to use the secretaries and typing pools common in the 1940s through the 1970s. Word processors eliminated armies of secretaries, religating them mostly to status symbols for pampered executives by the 1990s.