The operator is going off the hook for millions of customers.
Starting in January, AT
"Telephone users interpreted her as an efficient way to locate any information," wrote Emma Goodmann, an assistant professor of communication at Clarke University, in her 2019 paper on the history of telephone operators. It was designed to handle business communication, not social calls between local residents. Physicians, police, banks and the post office were some of the first subscribers.
Telephone companies sought female operators who would project a "comfortable and genteel image to their customers," Kenneth Lipartito, a professor of history at Florida International University, wrote in a 1994 paper "When Women Were Switches." "She's one of 250,000 girls who help to give you good service, day and night, seven days a week. She's your telephone operator," read one typical Bell Systems magazine ad.Operators played a crucial function because telephone books were often inaccurate and customers could not be counted on to remember updated numbers and addresses.
"When she was called 'Information,' people kept calling her for the wrong reasons," one Bell company ad said at the time. "Now we call her 'Directory Assistance' in the hope that you'll call her only for numbers you can't find in the phone book."Strikes, competition for labor, and rising wages during and after World War I drove Bell to speed up its automation plans.
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