Emma M Nutt Day Observed On 1St September Significance- History

Ahh the good ole days of being able to talk with an operator whom was pleasant and really cared about the customers. She was able to take care of phone calls on the switch board with ease. But them good ole daze are gone !
Now we either have to wait for an answer " pick up " , and the possibility of getting to the wrong group with the wrong answer. Only to be pushed again to " that's not my department ! "
Then and only then do we finally get to talk with Sara smiles. The operator in another country whom takes on an american name and does speak broken english. Sound familer ! Bring back these call center jobs here in the United states. Ok , Rant over !

Emma Nutt, The World’s 1st Woman Telephone Operator

When Emma Nutt reported for work at the Edwin Holmes Telephone Dispatch Company in Boston on Sept. 1, 1878, she became the world's first woman telephone operator.

Hours later, her sister Stella became the world's second female telephone operator.
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the first practical telephone, hired Emma away from a telegraph office. She was paid $10 per month for a 54-hour workweek, though she did get an hour for lunch. She supposedly remembered every number in the New England Telephone Company directory.

Teenage boys had been used as telephone operators – after all, they’d been telegraph operators from the beginning. But they weren’t suited for actually talking to real people. They were impatient, they liked to play jokes and they swore.

Emma Nutt, on the other hand, was patient and soothing and spoke in a cultured voice. She was such a success that women rapidly replaced boys.

By the end of the 1880s, nearly all telephone operators were women.
To get a job as an operator, women had to be unmarried proper young ladies between 17 and 26. They had to be tall enough to reach to top of the telephone switchboard. African American and Jewish women weren’t hired as operator

Emma loved her job and stayed at it for at least 33 (possibly 37) years. Her sister left after a few years to get married.
By the time Emma retired, the Edwin Holmes Telephone Dispatch Company had been consolidated with other small exchanges. It became the New England Telephone & Telegraph Company with service that connected the nation.

By World War I, Emma Nutt had retired, but wages hadn’t increased much.
When the war broke out, the telephone operators went on strike for higher wages, union recognition, better hours and promotion opportunities.

At 7 a.m. on April 15, 1919, New England’s night shift operators walked off the job. That was the beginning of a five-state telephone operator strike in New England involving thousands of women with strong community support. Five days later, management acquiesced, granting wage increases and union recognition.

http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/emma-nutt-worlds-1st-woman-telephone-operator/

http://time.com/4011936/emma-nutt/

https://nationaldaycalendar.com/days-2/national-emma-m-nutt-day-september-1/

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