Transcript

8.29.25 · History Hour

0:01
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome. This is radiois History Show and I'm
0:05
your host, Joseph Bolt, so happy to be with you
0:09
for this time. And as always, before we begin today's show,
0:13
I just want to remind you that Radio I is
0:16
listener driven, so because of that, we welcome your comments
0:21
and your suggestions about anything about our programming or what
0:25
we do. So if you have any thoughts, here's the
0:28
number eight five nine four two two six three nine
0:34
zero and let us know what you're thinking. Radio I
0:38
is a reading service intended for people who are blind
0:41
or have other disabilities that make it difficult to reprinted material.
0:47
I'll cite the sources for today's program as we go along,
0:51
So let's get started. In the earliest days of the telephone,
0:59
people and dial one another directly. They needed an intermediary,
1:04
a telephone operator to manually relay their call on a
1:08
certain central switchboard connected to subscribers wires. It was a
1:15
crucial news service that helped a revolutionary new technology spread
1:20
widely to the masses. The idea originated in April of
1:24
eighteen seventy seven, when forty year old George W. Koi
1:30
attended a lecture by Alexander Graham Bell, and in it,
1:35
the famous inventor demonstrated how he could converse with two colleagues,
1:40
one twenty seven miles away, the other thirty eight miles away,
1:45
using a device he'd patented just the year before, which was,
1:49
of course, as we know, of the telephone. Koi, a
1:53
Civil War veteran who worked in the telegraph business, soon
1:57
made a deal with Bell to set up the first
1:59
telephone extra change in the United States, a central switchboard
2:03
that allowed anyone with a telephone to call or be
2:05
called by anyone else who had one. Koy's Telephone Exchange
2:11
in New Haven, Connecticut opened in eighteen seventy eight, with
2:16
all of twenty one clients, including the local police, post office,
2:21
and a drug store. Today, Koi is often cited as
2:26
the world's first telephone operator. But while Koi devised the
2:31
switchboard for the exchange, improvising some parts from wire in
2:38
women's bustles, he hired two boys to operate it. Lewis Frost,
2:44
the seventeen year old son of one of Koy's business partners,
2:48
was most likely the first operator. That Koi would employ
2:53
boys to do, a job later associated mostly with girls
2:56
and young women, was only natural. Often worked at telegraph offices.
3:02
While female telegraph operators were a rarity that would continue
3:08
into the early days of the telephone, but by the
3:12
beginning of the twentieth century, women began dominating the field,
3:18
and as their numbers grew, they became a powerful force.
3:22
It turned out there was a problem with male switchboard operators.
3:26
The boys, often barely in their teens, could seem to
3:31
behave couldn't seem rather to behave themselves. They had a
3:35
tendency to rough house fight with each other, drink beer,
3:38
and play practical jokes, and when some other diversion held
3:43
their attention, they would leave a call unanswered for any
3:47
length of time and then return to the impatient subscriber's
3:51
profanity with a few original oaths, wrote Mary and may In,
4:00
or rather Marrion may Dilts in her nineteen forty one
4:03
book The Telephone in a Changing World. Hoping to find
4:08
operators who'd be more attentive to their duties and not
4:12
cuss out the customers, Alexander Graham Bell and the local
4:15
phone companies began to recruit girls and young women. Often
4:20
that meant going house to house trying to persuade parents
4:23
that becoming a telephone operator was a respectable job for
4:26
their daughters. Women were small, they would work for less money,
4:31
and Bell, like everyone else around him, had internalized beliefs
4:36
about the innate, gentleness and politeness of the fair sex.
4:42
In eighteen seventy eight, a woman named Emma Nutt Nutt
4:49
showed up to begin her job as a telephone operator.
4:53
Nutt was a Boston woman who worked in a telegraph
4:57
office before joining the Edwin Hunt Holmes Telephone Dispatch Company,
5:02
one of the original telephone dispatches, writes the New England
5:07
Historical Society. She was hired by Alexander Graham Bell himself
5:12
for a wage of ten dollars a month for a
5:15
work week of fifty four hours. Nut's first day was successful,
5:21
and the New England Historical Society writes that her sister,
5:25
Stella Nut was hired later the same day. But the
5:30
pair were just the beginning of a trend, writes Jennifer
5:35
Latson for Time magazine. Within six months, all Bell telephone
5:41
operators were women, that is, young white Christian women who
5:45
sounded like the phone company thought they should. Many women
5:50
embraced the professional opportunity, which seemed like a step up
5:54
from factory work or domestic service, Latsun writes, but the
5:59
work was an easy and telephone companies were draconian employers.
6:05
The state of affairs continued well into the twentieth century
6:10
lats and rights. As for Nutt, she worked at the
6:15
telephone company for at least thirty three years and loved
6:18
her job. According to the New England Historical Society, she
6:23
retired before the outbreak of World War One. As the
6:27
number of telephones in the United States multiplied, so did
6:31
the demand for operators. In nineteen ten, there were eighty
6:35
eight thousand female telephone operators in the United States. By
6:41
nineteen twenty ten, years later, there were one hundred and
6:43
seventy eight thousand, and ten years after that, two hundred
6:47
and thirty five thousand. In the telephone's earliest days, one
6:52
phone could be connected to another by a wire, allowing
6:57
two owners to speak. Connecting a call back then was
7:01
physical labor wrights Megan Garber for the Atlantic, each one
7:06
required some two to six people to plug switches into
7:10
taller switchboards. This generally meant days spent standing and kneeling.
7:18
While that may have seemed like a miracle at the time,
7:21
it was clear that the telephone would be much more
7:24
useful if any given phone could communicate with numerous phones.
7:30
Telephone exchanges made that possible. Each of the phones in
7:35
a particular locale would be connected by wire to a
7:40
central exchange. The owner of a telephone would call the
7:45
exchange and a switchboard operator would answer. The caller would
7:51
give the operator the name of the person he or
7:53
she wanted to speak with, and the operator would plug
7:56
a patch cord into that person's socket on the switch
8:00
For connecting the two long distance calls would require the
8:05
local exchange to patch the call through to more distant exchanges,
8:12
again through a series of cables. Later, as the exchanges
8:17
added more and more customers, phones were assigned numbers and
8:22
callers could request to be connected that way. Some early
8:27
telephone operators worked at small rural exchanges, their switchboards located
8:32
in the local railroad station or the back of a
8:35
general store. In the cities, massive switchboards could have long
8:41
rows of operators packed elbow to elbow. Some operators operating
8:47
on roller skates at the busier boards, work could be frantic.
8:54
Some operators, as we just said, took to roller skates
8:58
to get around. Otherwise, the dress code tended to be strict,
9:04
long black dresses and no jewelry. Operators were subject to
9:10
numerous other rules, and spies sometimes monitored their calls on
9:14
a device called a listening board. In eighteen ninety nine,
9:20
when a twenty five year old San Francisco operator named
9:24
Anna Byrne killed herself, the coroner held the phone company responsible, stating,
9:33
I firmly believe that the espionage to which telephone girls
9:37
are constantly subjected to drives them to suicidal desperation. They
9:44
are overworked, and no mercy has shown them. When a
9:47
slight offenses committed by a trivial infraction of the company's rules,
9:54
many operators agreed, the wonder is that more telephone girl
10:00
don't kill themselves. A veteran operator told the San Francisco Examiner,
10:05
we are not allowed to speak even in a whisper
10:08
to each other the nine hours that were on duty,
10:12
much less smile or laugh. She said that once she'd
10:18
been forced to work ten extra hours without pay for
10:23
one brief giggle. Companies often tried to control their operator's
10:30
personal lives as well. The unwritten rule was that she
10:34
could not marry and would lose her job if she did,
10:38
noted Ellen Stern and Emily Gwantny in their nineteen ninety
10:43
four history Once Upon a Telephone. The pace of the
10:49
work and the repressive rules that operators often had to
10:53
put up with eventually led to dissension within the ranks.
10:57
Phone companies discovered that their supposedly docile female workforces could
11:03
only be pushed so far. In April nineteen nineteen, for example,
11:10
some eight thousand operators walked off the job at the
11:13
New England Telephone Company, all but shutting down phone service
11:17
in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Five
11:25
days later, the company met their demands for higher wages
11:30
and the right to bargain collectively. With the coming of
11:35
the nineteen thirties, technology that allowed telephone users simply to
11:40
dial another phone without the aid of an operator had
11:43
become widespread. Phone companies took advantage of the moment to
11:49
slash their workforces, and thousands of operators lost their jobs.
11:56
By nineteen forty, there were fewer than two hundred thousand
12:00
in all. In twenty twenty one, the Bureau of Labor
12:06
Statistics reported a total of just five thousand workers it
12:11
classifies as telephone operators plus another sixty nine thousand, nine
12:16
hundred categorized as switchboard operators, including answering the service, and
12:24
it expects more than twenty percent of those jobs to
12:29
disappear by twenty twenty nine. Sources for that story came
12:36
from History dot com The Rise and Fall of Telephone Operators,
12:39
written by Greg Daughdery in October twenty three, and from
12:43
smithsonianmag dot com Long before Siri Emma Nutt's voice on
12:50
the other end of the line, written by Kat Eshner
12:53
in September of two thousand seventeen. So I want to
12:58
read you a second store for today's show, and let's
13:02
get that started. After the United States entered World War
13:07
One in the spring of nineteen seventeen, the military arrived
13:12
overseas to find a world turned upside down. The French
13:16
phone lines had been destroyed from the back and forth battles.
13:21
The repairs were mere patches to permit badly needed communication
13:28
for the American Expeditionary Forces or the ae F. General
13:35
Pershing wanted a better system. The Signal Corps men were
13:40
experts at string stringing lines under adversity, replacing old lines
13:47
and adding new Now the technology permitted it. Generals wanted
13:52
voice contact with their commanders on the front line. When
13:57
the corps returned from stringing the life lines, the men
14:00
were assigned to operate the switchboards at home. This was
14:05
women's work. The men proved awkward at remembering the line
14:11
combinations and connecting and pulling the calls. Most also spoke
14:16
no French, so it limited their ability to be effective.
14:21
The Signal Corps commander felt the problem could be solved
14:25
by hiring French operators. These women, however, were difficult for
14:31
the Americans to understand. In addition, their pace of operation
14:37
was far slower than what American operators could do. On
14:42
November eighth, nineteen seventeen, General Pershing put out the word
14:50
American bilingual operators were needed to run the US military
14:55
telephones in Europe. Ads were placed in newspapers throughout the country,
15:02
and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was assigned to
15:05
sift through the applications. The company found it difficult to
15:11
find candidates. Applicants who were experienced as operators tended to
15:16
not have language skills. Most bone companies would only hire
15:22
women who spoke English with no accent. Those who were
15:27
conversant in French, lacked training on a switchboard. Soon, the
15:33
application requirements were loosened. Eventually, seventeen hundred and fifty women applied.
15:42
Four hundred and fifty women passed a language test that
15:45
indicated they could handle the work, and they were accepted
15:49
for training. Because the most likely candidates were either French
15:54
teachers or professional operators, the group accepted more was more
16:02
highly rather educated than the broad population. Two hundred and
16:08
twenty three women were selected to serve in the Signal
16:13
Corps female telephone operator's unit, which eventually became known as
16:19
the Hello Girls because they greeted every call with Hello.
16:26
One difficulty for the women was money. Unlike the regular military,
16:33
the women were required to buy their own uniforms and
16:37
needed to take their own spending money. They were told
16:42
to bring about five hundred dollars well. Some of the
16:46
women came from well to do families or had worked
16:51
for long enough years that they had savings, but for
16:56
some the financial requirement of five hundred dollar was a hardship.
17:02
Anne Campbell Atkinson of Emmett, Idaho, was one who qualified
17:09
to serve but lacked the money. Her town held a
17:13
benefit so that she could serve. Those who applied generally
17:22
chose to do so out of patriotism. One applicant, Cordelia Duprie,
17:32
was the oldest of sixteen siblings. Because her brothers were
17:37
too young to serve, she wanted to represent the family.
17:42
By January nineteen eighteen, the first thirty three women were
17:47
going through final preparations. Those who had not worked a
17:52
switchboard needed to be trained before leaving the United States.
17:57
Others needed to brush up on their French. They were
18:02
slated to serve in telephone offices in Tours, Chaumont and Paris.
18:11
From the moment they left the United States, the women
18:15
knew this was no longer business as usual. They could
18:19
not forget they were in a war zone. They traveled
18:23
through France via a train that had to halt frequently
18:28
to avoid German air raids. Once settled in their drafty lodgings,
18:35
they often woke to an air raid siren. They then
18:39
dashed to the bomb shelters and were there for the
18:42
rest of the night. One German bomb hit so close
18:46
to their offices that a shell fragment shattered a window.
18:52
When the English speaking operators began answering with number police
18:57
the American military were thrilled to hear an American voice
19:02
on the other end of the call, and their speed
19:06
and professionalism was noted immediately. The Americans were trained to
19:11
use their first two fingers to plug in multiple calls
19:16
while unplugging calls with their little fingers. Dexterity was important
19:22
and this increased the speed they dealt with the lays,
19:27
wrong numbers, and emergency calls. And the one cardinal rule
19:33
they all knew was that when General Pershing's calls were connected,
19:39
other calls were cut off abruptly to put the General's
19:43
calls through. In the bigger war offices, they were managing
19:49
more than three hundred calls an hour. Even after more
19:55
women were sent over to help, there still were not
19:58
enough to cover all the ship because the men were
20:02
less efficient. The Signal Corps men handled the switchboards at
20:05
night when the pace of calls slowed down. The women
20:10
used both French and English on their calls. They were
20:13
placing and disconnecting calls made by the military, both to
20:17
locations in France as well as to the front lines.
20:21
As the military brass witnessed their level of expertise, they
20:25
began using the women to take care of additional logistical
20:28
calls concerning secretive movements of the troops and supplies. Some
20:34
of the women were pulled into offices where telephone conversations
20:37
were carried out in code. In August of nineteen eighteen,
20:44
the Americans moved forward to be a part of the
20:46
offensive near Saint Mahal. Operators were needed at General Pershing's headquarters,
20:55
within fifteen miles of the front lines. Because it was
20:59
a dangerous mission, the operators could volunteer more than enough
21:04
women wanted the assignment. General Pershing was among those in
21:08
the first Army Office, and he selected the women he
21:12
wanted to handle lines of communication. The most important lines
21:17
were to and from the front line unit and the
21:20
commanding officers. Grace Banker, the head of the Signal Corps
21:25
female operators, and five other women were in the office
21:29
near Saint Mahal. They worked six hour shifts, six on
21:34
six off running the switchboard throughout the battle. After Saint Mahal,
21:39
the women were relocated to Soili, close to where the
21:45
muse ar Gone offensive was taking place. There was so
21:50
much action via the telephone that six more women were
21:53
brought into the office every order for an infantry advance,
21:58
and in fact, for every troop movement came over these
22:01
fighting lines. The First Army headquarters were so close to
22:07
the front that on October thirty, nineteen eighteen, the complex
22:11
of buildings housing the AEF caught fire. The fire spread
22:17
to the telephone office, but the operators refused to leave.
22:21
After several requests that the women get out, an officer
22:24
arrived and threatened court martial. With that, the women left,
22:29
but once the fire was out they went right back in.
22:34
Two thirds of the telephone wire connections were destroyed, but
22:40
the operators went in and worked the calls they could.
22:44
This was just two weeks prior to the signing of
22:49
the armistice. After the signing, the telephone operators were still needed,
22:55
so many remained in France for a longer time. The
22:59
women who served felt great pride in the roles they
23:04
had played as soldiers. They went through basic training for
23:10
the Signal Corps at Camp Franklin before departing, took the
23:16
same military oaths that others in the Army did, and
23:23
were subject to the same military rules. What's more, the
23:29
Hello girls who had served valiantly during and after the
23:35
fire at First Army during the final battles received Distinguished
23:42
Service medals for their untiring devotion under trying conditions. Yet
23:51
when they arrived home, there were no official discharge papers
23:57
as proof of service, no victory medals, and no veterans' benefits.
24:06
Suddenly they were deemed just civilians. They were dismissed with
24:13
notices of termination. Official Army regulations of the time specified
24:19
that soldiers must be male. Women attached to the Army
24:23
were just civilian volunteers. The women were angry and felt betrayed.
24:30
Signal Corps operator Ended Polly testified before Congress and stated,
24:38
an injustice has been done to me personally and to
24:42
the other women who served their country honorably as members
24:45
of the Signal Corps telephone operating units. But it was
24:50
their member, Merle Egan Anderson who led sixty year a
24:54
sixty year fight for justice. The women had been given
24:57
every sign that they were officially soldiers. Anderson was intent
25:03
to make the government hold true to the promise. In
25:06
nineteen seventy nine, the Signal Corps female operators finally received
25:12
the recognition they were due. Upon the enactment of the
25:15
GI Bill Improvement Act of nineteen seventy seven, signed into
25:20
law by President Jimmy Carter. At the time, only eighteen
25:24
of the Hello Girls were still living. Each was visited
25:28
by a member of the military who presented their discharge
25:30
paper specifying they had served honorably and were given a
25:35
veteran's status. If there's a silver lining to all of this,
25:39
it may be the fact that President Wilson finally understood
25:43
that he had to push hard for women's suffrage, and
25:47
in a speech to Congress, he said, we have made
25:50
partners of the women in this war. Shall we admit
25:53
them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toll,
25:58
and not to a partnership of privilege and right. The
26:04
Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U. S Constitution on
26:08
August twenty sixth, nineteen twenty. Slowly, but surely, women have
26:13
become part of all branches of the military. Sources for
26:18
this story came from America Comes Alive dot com Women
26:23
Answered Call in World War One written by Kate Kelly,
26:26
no date, and from the same source World War One
26:32
US Recruits Women Operators again written by Kate Kelly, and
26:36
finally The Collector dot Com. The Hello Girls of World
26:40
War One, written by Amy Hayes in May of twenty
26:45
twenty three. Well, that about does it for this chapter
26:49
of RADIOI history. I sure hope you enjoyed it as
26:54
much as I did reading it to you. I thank
26:57
you for listening and giving me your time. To day,
27:02
I'm your host, Joseph Bolt, and I'll be back next
27:06
time with another chapter of Radio I history. Until then,
27:13
happy trails,