View allAll Photos Tagged switchboard
Refurbished photo of Switchboard at RAF South Ruislip - circa 1972.
www.ruisliponline.com/images/Switchboard Ruislip1.JPG
Wyandotte led the way Downriver in establishing telephone service in this area in the late 1800s. Here, a telephone switchboard operator - at the time they were staffed by young men - mans the console at the Cahalan building where Nanna's Kitchen stands today. (Don Gutz collection)
Title: Engine Room & Switch Board [sic] Texas City Refining Co., Tex City, Tex.
Alternative Title: [Engine Room and Switchboard, Texas City Refining Company, Texas City, Texas]
Creator: Unknown
Date: ca. 1907-1914
Part of: George W. Cook Dallas/Texas image collection
Series: Series 3: Photographs
Series 3, Subseries 3, Postcards
Series 3, Subseries 3d, RPPC, Texas
Place: Texas City, Galveston County, Texas
Description: Man standing next to a Harrisburg Foundry and Machine Works Fleming Steam Engine, Texas City Refining Company, Texas City, Texas.
Physical Description: 1 photographic print (postcard): gelatin silver; 9 x 14 cm
File: a2014_0020_3_3_d_0317_c_texascityengineroom.jpg
Rights: Please cite DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University when using this file. A high-resolution version of this file may be obtained for a fee.
For more information and to view the image in high resolution, see: digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/gcd/...
Description: Main Switchboard.
Location: Jaffa, Palestine
Date: 1922-1923
Our Catalogue Reference: Part of CO 1069/731
This image is part of the Colonial Office photographic collection held at The National Archives. Feel free to share it within the spirit of the Commons
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I'm not sure if this picture is right-side up or not. It was definitely a switchboard room (there were phones littered around the room). I couldn't make heads or tails of that mess.
Supervisors work the switchboards at the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company building at 725 13th Street NW January 10, 1946 after regular operators walked off the job to hold a union meeting.
The “continuous meeting” ended up lasting eight days.
The 3,000 switchboard operators were fed up with rules like requiring a supervisor present before changing a headset from one ear to another or having to call a supervisor before taking an aspirin.
Mary Gannon led the local operators union from the time it was a company union in 1935 through militant strikes in the 1940s and up until 1950--after the Communications Workers of America was formed. She was one of the few women union leaders in the Washington, D.C. area at that time. Margaret Gilmore at the Bureau of Engraving was another.
She led as many as 200 strikes—most for an hour or two—during her career, including a one-day strike that disrupted White House communications during World War II. Many of the strikes were sympathy strikes helping other telephone unions around the country and helping to lay the basis for a national union.
She was in the late stages of pregnancy with her son Tommy during the six-week 1947 strike, and put in the long hours and picket duty required of a union leader. Her son was born near the end of the strike and Gannon returned to the bargaining table after giving birth to conclude the contract agreement that would end the strike.
Gannon said of her decision to resign at age 38 in 1950, “I was torn between two children, for I feel like the union was my child too. But in the end I felt like I must give more attention to Tommy.”
During her tenure, the telephone operators were known as “Gannon’s girls” by news reporters.
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmbnHJap
For a blog post on the Washington Telephone Traffic Union, see washingtonareaspark.com/2022/02/08/the-washington-telepho...
The photographer is unknown. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Working the old Western Electric Model 555 cord switchboard at Dreher, circa 1970. Six CO (Central Office, i.e., the phone company) trunk lines (four on "rotation" and two "private") and about 40 extensions. "Rotation" means there was one published main number, with three successive numbers/lines that incoming calls would automatically roll over to if the lower number was busy. If you were calling in from outside and got a busy signal with the main number, and knew the "private" numbers, which weren't listed, you could call one of them and usually get through.
Well, maybe I wasn't copying a "19" order (for a train), but at least I could say I was an operator.
If you got real busy, the cords would get all criss-crossed and tangled up. I got so busy sometimes that I ran out of cords to use and had to just sit there and watch extensions light up with no way to answer them. Since there were only six "CO" lines, often they were all busy. Then you had to keep a call-back list for people wanting to make a call out.
At times like that your hands would get real sweaty, and if you got in a hurry and grabbed a plug by the tip instead of the insulated base, you could get the 108 v.a.c. ringing current up your arm, and it would knock the crap out of you! One day I was leaning back in the chair, and it knocked me over backwards. I tried to grab hold of the board to keep from falling, but only succeeded in pulling out most of the cords from the jacks. I disconnected about a dozen people. Took about an hour of apologizing and reconnecting to straighten that mess out.
One time it got me, and I yelled and cut loose a with a loud stream of profanity that brought Mrs. Reed, Mr. Smith, and Mrs. Woodruff all out of their offices to find out what in the world was going on. Mrs. Hughey, whose desk was behind me, saw it and knew what happened, and was laughing. Mrs. Reed and Mr. Smith (the principal) just started laughing too and went back in their offices.
But Mrs. Woodruff (Asst. Principal) stood there and chewed me out for using, "The most vile language I have ever heard in an office in my life." I happened to have my guidance counselor, Sue Elliott, on the line at that moment, and she heard everything that happened. While I was listening to, and apologizing to, Mrs. Woodruff, all I could hear in my left ear was Mrs. Elliott, laughing hysterically.
They switched to a Centrex system my senior year, 1972, and retired my beloved old board. Luckily they didn't get it installed until after I graduated. This photo was scanned from the school annual, which explains the graininess. Note the ashtray on the desk in foreground! Students who smoked had their own designated smoking area in back of the building. I'm glad to say I never smoked, not even one. Probably inhaled quite a few secondhand, though.
Description: Kwame Nkrumah visits a telephone exchange.
Location: Accra
Our Catalogue Reference: Part of CO 1069/43
This image is part of the Colonial Office photographic collection held at The National Archives, uploaded as part of the Africa Through a Lens project. Feel free to share it within the spirit of the Commons.
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The only way I know this one's right-side up is because of the chair. Yeah, lots of cables in that room, next to the stairs leading to the upstairs offices.
Update: Featured in this NRDC's staff blog's post about the Dupont Circle neighborhood switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kbenfield/video_week_a_curator...
As seen in this Atlantic Cities articles about DC's skyline and scenic vistas www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2012/11/urbanist-case-... (see also: switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kbenfield/why_i_support_the_dc... )
Used in this blog post about Washington DC's building height restrictions and how they protect historic architecture and the urban fabric of the city www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2012/11/urbanist-case-keeping-d...
Members of the Washington Telephone Traffic Union meet at Turner’s Arena on 14th Street NW January 10, 1946 where they called for a “continuous meeting” to force C&P telephone to abandon paternalistic work rules.
The 3,000 switchboard operators were fed up with rules like requiring a supervisor present before changing a headset from one ear to another or having to call a supervisor before taking an aspirin.
C&P Telephone set up a Jim Crow system where black and white workers did not work at the same location. However, the union held meetings where members of all races mixed freely (see lower right of the photo where African Americans are seated toward the front, mixed in with whites), unlike some unions at the time that required separate locals for blacks and whites or separate seating.
These are probably clerks from the all-Black office at 14th and U Streets NW or cafeteria workers represented by the local. The first black telephone operators weren't hired until 1956.
The “continuous meeting” last eight days.
Mary Gannon led the local operators union from the time it was a company union in 1935 through militant strikes in the 1940s and up until 1950--after the Communications Workers of America was formed. She was one of the few women union leaders in the Washington, D.C. area at that time. Margaret Gilmore at the Bureau of Engraving was another.
She led as many as 200 strikes—most for an hour or two—during her career, including a one-day strike that disrupted White House communications during World War II. Many of the strikes were sympathy strikes helping other telephone unions around the country and helping to lay the basis for a national union.
She was in the late stages of pregnancy with her son Tommy during the six-week 1947 strike, and put in the long hours and picket duty required of a union leader. Her son was born near the end of the strike and Gannon returned to the bargaining table shortly after giving birth to conclude the agreement that would end the strike.
She continued to work after giving birth helping to form the Communications Workers of America later in 1947 in the aftermath of the failed strike.
Gannon said of her decision to resign at age 38 in 1950, “I was torn between two children, for I feel like the union was my child too. But in the end I felt like I must give more attention to Tommy.”
During her tenure, the telephone operators were known as “Gannon’s girls” by area news reporters.
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmbnHJap
For a blog post on the Washington Telephone Traffic Union, see washingtonareaspark.com/2022/02/08/the-washington-telepho...
The photographer is unknown. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
...with interesting instructions (from 1895) on how to treat a person who has suffered an electric shock.
Taken on 01 August 2014 in Namibia near Luderitz Kolmanskop Haalenberg (DSC_5796)
freewheely.com: Cycling Africa beyond mountains and deserts until Cape Town
Mrs Marion Munro, Mrs Nellie Simonson, Mrs Edna Borland are full time and Mrs Dorothy Taylor and Mrs Ruth [Munro] Gates are part time. Grant Sutherland, one of the directors took the last call from the switchboard..
Presumably not for the telephone lines, but more likely related to the tracks on the Underground. Could they be the inherent root cause of the ubiquitous signalling problems that plague us today?
Operators connected callers through a central switchboard at Dakota Central Telephone, owned by J. L. Zietlow, Aberdeen, ca. 1920. Photo courtesy of the South Dakota State Archives (Zietlow Collection).
Ellery Thompson operated the Kaladar & Northern Telephone System located in Northbrook. When telephones went to dial-up in the mid-1960s this switchboard was no longer needed for the telephone service to operate. Ellery (man in centre with striped tie) donated this switchboard to the Sunshine School - a school for developmentally challenged children located between Napanee and Odessa. A member of the school board (man with glasses) was present for this photo. The switchboard was to be used as a learning tool for the children. After the switchboard was of no longer use it was to be returned to Ellery and donated to the Pioneer Museum where it now resides.
Ellery purchased a smaller telephone system from James Vogen in Northbrook who was using the former general store in Northbrook (later Glady's Cup and Kettle) to house the equipment. Ellery rapidly expanded the system and offered telephone service to Flinton, Kaladar, Northbrook, Cloyne, Fernleigh, Harlowe and Ferguson's Corners (bottom of Eagle Hill). The Denbigh and Plevna telephone exchanges were purchased by Ellery later to further expand the service. During this expansion he employed many people including George Hawley as a technician.
Party lines were the norm. The more people on a single line, the more hum was generated in the call. Every 20 subscribers would have a 'jackknife switch' which would enable a caller to reach further afield. For instance, someone calling from Northbrook to Matawatchewan would need to first reach Mrs. Gregg in Vennachar who relayed the call to Denbigh. The Denbigh switchboard person would relay the call to Griffith and then finally to Mrs. McLaren in Matawatchewan. Oftentimes switchboard operators had the switches by their bed so they could transfer calls after hours. When the Northbrook switchboard was located in the former Liquor Store a bed was located close-by for the operator.
Part of the Ellery Thompson Collection.
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