Women’s History Month 2025: Women in the Workplace

As telephones became popular communication devices, women quite literally connected the world—one call at a time. As we continue to honor women who educate and inspire generations, we are sharing a 2023 blog post about a 1947 booklet from the Southern New England Telephone Company. The booklet captures an moment when telephone operation was a top job for women, offering not just employment but also the benefits of union representation.

In the early days of the telephone, it was impossible for users to directly dial one another. Rather, they called the telephone exchange where an operator manually relayed the call using a central switchboard. When telephone exchanges first became operational in early 1878, the switchboards were operated by teenage boys. However, due to issues with rudeness and immaturity, companies began hiring women. The first female telephone operator was Emma Nutt. She began working at the Edwin Holmes Telephone Dispatch Company in September 1878. Shortly after, other companies began replacing their male operators with women. By the early nineteen hundreds, telephone operation was one of the most common jobs for young women in the United States. As the ubiquity of the telephone grew, so did the number of female telephone operators. By 1930, there were an estimated 235,000 women working as telephone operators. 

The early nineteen hundreds also led to the increased spread of the electromechanical automatic telephone exchange, which had first been invented by Almon Strowger in 1888. The electromechanical automatic telephone exchange enabled users to directly call one another, allowing telephone companies to reduce their workforces. As time passed, fewer operators were needed, although telephone operation still remained a popular job for women in the workforce well into nineteen-fifties and nineteen-sixties. Despite the rise of the electromechanical automatic telephone exchange, manual telephone exchange was used by many companies well into the latter half of the twentieth century. 

One company that continued to use the manual telephone exchange was the Southern New England Telephone Company. They started operations in January 1878 as the District Telephone Company of New Haven. It developed the first telephone exchange, as well as the world’s first telephone book. It held a monopoly on most of the telephone services in the state of Connecticut since its inception, with the exception of the town of Greenwich. The company is still in operation today under the trade name Frontier Communications of Connecticut. 

A booklet published by the Southern New England Telephone Company in March 1947 and now in Historic New England’s Library and Archives offers insight into its operation and employees. The booklet details what the operation of a telephone exchange entails and the responsibilities of telephone operators. Photographs of dozens of employees working throughout the divisions of the telephone exchange are included. The booklet also lists the names and job titles of employees for the Southern New England Telephone Company. Every employee listed is a woman, highlighting the prevalence of women in the field. Importantly, the positions were protected by the Connecticut Union of Telephone Workers, Inc. and provided the opportunity for women to serve as officers of the union. 

The booklet provides invaluable insight into the lives of working women of New Haven, Connecticut, around the middle of the twentieth century. It also supplies a glimpse into a field dominated by women before its decline due to the rise of the automatic telephone exchange. During a time when women lacked the same job opportunities as men, telephone operations provided a stable, well-respected job for women from all backgrounds.  

Written by Jordan Meyerl, Senior Cataloger, Historic New England Library and Archives

This post originally appeared as “Women in the Workplace: The Southern New England Telephone Company,” on November 30, 2023.