Telephone Switchboard
"Hello Operator? I'd like to make a call, Enterprise 5-4120 please"
In the early days of telephony, companies used manual telephone switchboards, and switchboard operators connected calls by inserting a pair of phone plugs into the appropriate jacks.
They were gradually phased out and replaced by automated systems, first those allowing direct dialing within a local area, then for long-distance and international direct dialing.
In January 1878 George Willard Croy became the world's first telephone operator when he started working for the Boston Telephone Dispatch company.
United States phone operator in 1911. Emma Nutt became the first female telephone operator on 1 September 1878 when she started working for the Boston Telephone Dispatch company, because the attitude and behaviour of the teenage boys previously employed as operators was unacceptable.
Emma was hired by Alexander Graham Bell, and reportedly, could remember every number in the telephone directory of the New England Telephone Company.
More women began to replace men within this sector of the workforce for several reasons. The companies observed that women were generally more courteous to callers, and women's labor was cheap in comparison to men's.
I shot this picture a few years ago with my cell phone from my University's communication museum.
Telephone Switchboard
"Hello Operator? I'd like to make a call, Enterprise 5-4120 please"
In the early days of telephony, companies used manual telephone switchboards, and switchboard operators connected calls by inserting a pair of phone plugs into the appropriate jacks.
They were gradually phased out and replaced by automated systems, first those allowing direct dialing within a local area, then for long-distance and international direct dialing.
In January 1878 George Willard Croy became the world's first telephone operator when he started working for the Boston Telephone Dispatch company.
United States phone operator in 1911. Emma Nutt became the first female telephone operator on 1 September 1878 when she started working for the Boston Telephone Dispatch company, because the attitude and behaviour of the teenage boys previously employed as operators was unacceptable.
Emma was hired by Alexander Graham Bell, and reportedly, could remember every number in the telephone directory of the New England Telephone Company.
More women began to replace men within this sector of the workforce for several reasons. The companies observed that women were generally more courteous to callers, and women's labor was cheap in comparison to men's.
I shot this picture a few years ago with my cell phone from my University's communication museum.