Every Day Is Special: telephone operator

Showing posts with label telephone operator. Show all posts

March 10 - Necessity is the Mother of Invention, Undertaker Version

Posted on March 10, 2020

Do you know how undertakers get their business?

In case you are unfamiliar with the term "undertaker," this is a funeral director and / or mortician - the person who is called for when someone dies.

The undertaker takes away the body, gets it ready for viewing and/or burial or cremation.

Before telephones, someone in the family or perhaps a paid messenger would go and fetch the undertaker in person. But since the late 1800s, the "call" would generally come by telephone.

And telephones were connected to one another by people - by telephone operators.

And now we come to our invention story: An undertaker named Almon Brown Strowger. He lived in Kansas City, Missouri, or possibly a nearby Midwest city; but at least one other undertaker also lived there. And once telephones became common, Strowger's services as undertaker weren't used as often. He suspected shenanigans - and when he discovered that his competitor's wife worked as a telephone operator, Strowger became sure that she was using her position to connect callers with her husband's mortuary business rather than Strowger's.

Don't get mad; get creative!

I don't actually know if Strowger got angry at the situation, but I do know that he got creative! He invented a machine that could do the work of a human telephone operator; and on this date in 1891 he patented his "Strowger switch." Soon he started the Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Company. This became the first successful, widely-used automatic telephone exchange system.

I bet that the success of his switch meant that Strowger no longer had to work as an undertaker. What irony!

Also on this date:

International Bagpipe Day

International Day of Awesomeness

U.S. Paper Money Day

Harriet Tubman Day

Naturalist Georg Steller's birthday

Mario Day

National Landline Telephone Day

Birthday of educator Hallie Quinn Brown

Plan ahead:

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September 1 – Emma M. Nutt Day

Posted on September 1, 2016

So many jobs used to be segregated - only particular ages, sexes, and races worked in various positions. Being a telephone operator was one of them.

Back in the day before there were telephones, there were telegraphs, and being a telegraph operator was one of the first “high tech” jobs of the modern era. Then as now, high-tech, cutting-edge jobs appeal more to young people, and young men and boys especially were hired to become telegraph operators. They tapped out people's messages on the key, using Morse Code, and converted arriving Morse Code messages to understandable English telegraphs.

When telephones largely replaced telegraphs, companies hired young men and boys to be operators – just had been done with the earlier technology. But – according to Wikipedia – male telephone operators tended to be impatient, to have bad attitudes, even to curse or play pranks on callers!

On this date in 1878, Emma Nutt became the first female telephone operator. She was hired for a Boston telephone dispatch company by Alexander Graham Bell (inventor of the world's first practical telephone) himself!

Customers apparently loved her soothing voice and her patience. The response was so overwhelmingly positive, women telephone operators became the standard!

Notice that, in the early days of telephones, telephone
operators had to stand rather than sit. They had to be tall
enough -- or long-armed enough -- to reach the top of the
telephone exchange!

By the way, Emma Nutt loved the job and ended up working as a telephone operator more than 30 years.

Here are some oddities about the whole Emma Nutt story:

A few hours after she became the first-ever female telephone operator, Emma's sister Stella Nutt was hired by the same company and thus became the second female telephone operator! – Notice that Stella didn't get a holiday named after her!

Women who worked as operators had to be unmarried. To start with, at least, they had to be proper young ladies between the ages of 17 and 26. African American and Jewish women apparently were not hired as telephone operators.
It was said that Emma Nutt could remember every telephone number in the telephone director of the New England Telephone Company!