A reunion of Maine switchboard operators highlights the challenges of making a phone call more than 50 years ago and what it was like to handle emergencies, rude customers and delicate situations.

The business decided to employ women operators and Emma Nutt was the first woman telephone operator. Early switchboard operation was not the easiest of jobs, demanding a high degree of accuracy ...

Then it all went away. In the 1920s, as telephone coverage was expanding and the ranks of operators were growing, AT&T began to roll out a “mechanical switching” system in which people would ...

AI lessons from the telephone operators of the 1920s. In the early 20th century, thousands of young women worked as telephone switchboard operators.

Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Telephone operators work at the switchboard in the Pacific Telephone Chinatown branch, 1941.

A reunion of Maine switchboard operators highlights the challenges of making a phone call more than 50 years ago and what it was like to handle emergencies, rude customers and delicate situations.

Keywords telephone operators, toll dialing, dialing techniques, equipment, ... Vintage Telephone Technology: Switchboard Operators & Long-Distance Calls. Posted: March 11, 2025 ...

Playing Operator on a Vintage Telephone Switchboard by Allison Meier July 12, 2016 July 12, 2016. Subscribe to our newsletter.

A telephone switchboard and its operator in 1935. (Source: Library of Congress) During his 77 years, Dennis Hall has seen a lot of changes in rural communications. More than that, he’s lived those ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed how people communicate at work: Nearly half of people videoconference more, 43% email more, 42% call more, and 41% text more than before the pandemic ...

Jacqueline Kennedy drops in at the switchboard room at Democratic Headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 4, 1960, to meet the telephone operators and thank them for their aid during the ...