11/20/2023 0 Comments Army signal corp unit es: 159 Soon, more American-built circuits had been added to locations in France, reducing reliance on French switchboards. īy July 1918, the Army telephone service in France tripled the number of calls per day due to the addition of the women operators. The Chief Operator of the Second American Unit of Telephone Operators was Inez Crittenden of California. Members of this unit were soon operating telephones in many exchanges of the American Expeditionary Forces in Paris, Chaumont, and seventy-five other French locations as well as British locations in London, Southampton, and Winchester. Īfter training, the first operators, under the lead of Chief Operator Grace Banker, left for Europe in March 1918. Finally, they had all proclaimed the spirit of patriotism for the Allied cause before heading on their way. The average age of employment was twenty-six, which was young for the time, but most had worked previous jobs and had at-least one foreign-born parent. These women were single, well educated, and independent. Most of the women who served ended up being from urban areas of the United States and Canada where there was more access to this technology. AT&T offered to provide telephone operating training to bilingual recruits who lacked switchboard experience. Recruiting focused on fluency in French, as that was presumed to be the more difficult qualification to meet. : 69–73 Pershing was aware of the contributions women had made to the war front and had even called on female clerical workers to serve so that more men could be moved to the Front. The initial staffing requirements, specified by Pershing, were 3 chief operators, 9 supervising operators, 78 local and long-distance operators, 10 substitutes, and one man (a commissioned captain) to generally supervise traffic. On account of the great difficulty of obtaining properly qualified men, request organization and dispatch to France a force of Woman telephone operators all speaking French and English equally well. Agreeing, Pershing sent a Novemcable: : 69–73 Several officers in the Signal Corps proposed that they recruit bilingual American women. The communication difficulties in France, due to a shortage of switchboard operators and the language differences, frustrated Pershing. He then ordered that the women be under constant supervision, and that they must be "of mature age and high moral character". To assuage public concern, Baker permitted women to be hired only when men were unavailable. Barracks for women began to be built in October. Although the War Department declared that no women should be employed, except nurses attached to hospitals, the Signal Corps and AT&T convinced Secretary of War Newton Baker that the highly trained, experienced women operators were essential. In September 1917, as male recruits were being shipped to France, the commanders of various Army camps in the continental United States began asking for permission to build facilities to house women telephone operators to maintain their communications. Published references to "hello girls" predating World War I include the following sentence from Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court written in 1889: "The humblest hello-girl along ten thousand miles of wire could teach gentleness, patience, modesty, manners, to the highest duchess in Arthur's land". The term was coined for female telephone switchboard operators in the US, who would greet callers with "hello" when they signalled to place a call. They completed their Signal Corps training at Camp Franklin, now a part of Fort George G. Many of these women were former switchboard operators or employees at telecommunications companies. Over 7,000 women applied, but only 223 women were accepted. Applicants had to be bilingual in English and French to ensure that orders would be heard by anyone. Pershing to improve the worsening state of communications on the Western front. This corps were formed in 1917 from a call by General John J. Until 1977 they were officially categorized as civilian "contract employees" of the US Army. During World War I, these switchboard operators were sworn into the U.S. Hello Girls was the colloquial name for American female switchboard operators in World War I, formally known as the Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit. Hello Girls operating switchboards in Chaumont, France during WWI For the British TV series, see The Hello Girls.
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