"Number, Please": The Telephone Operators

"Number, Please"

1Today, you can tap a few buttons and reach someone across town in seconds. When telephones were new, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, calling was not so simple. Most telephones had no dial and no buttons at all. To make a call, you needed help from a person called a telephone operator.

2When you lifted the receiver, a signal appeared at the telephone exchange, a building that connected the lines of a whole town or neighborhood. An operator answered with a polite question: "Number, please?" You told her the number you wanted, and she connected you.

3Operators did this work at a switchboard, a tall panel covered with rows of small holes called jacks. Each jack was linked to a different telephone line. The operator picked up a cord with a plug on the end and pushed it into the jack for your line. Then she plugged a second cord into the jack for the person you were calling and rang that telephone. When the call ended, she pulled out the plugs so the lines were free again.

4The very first operators were mostly teenage boys. Many of them were rude to callers, and some played pranks on the lines. Telephone companies soon began hiring women instead. A Boston woman named Emma Nutt is often called the first woman telephone operator. Callers liked her calm voice, and before long, operating became a common job for young women.

5The work was demanding. Operators sat side by side in long rows, wearing headsets and reaching up and across the board. They were expected to answer every signal quickly and to speak politely, even when callers were impatient. Supervisors walked behind the rows, watching and listening.

6In small towns, the operator was often much more than a connector of calls. She knew many of the families on her lines. People called her to ask the time, to find out where a fire was, or to get help in an emergency. In some towns, she was one of the first people to hear the news.

7Over the 1900s, dial telephones slowly spread. With a dial, callers could connect most calls themselves, and machines did the switching. Operators were still needed for some calls, but the busy rows of switchboards gradually grew quiet.