See Photos of Telephone Operators Through the Decades

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Telephone operators, 1938
Operators on the transoceanic switchboard at the Long Distance Building of the New York Telephone Co, 1938.Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
By Eliza Berman

On Sept. 1, 1878, Emma Nutt showed up for work at the Edwin Holmes Telephone Dispatch Company in Boston. It was her first day of work after leaving her old job at a telegraph company, and, whether she knew it or not, it was a milestone for women in the workplace: Nutt was the first-ever female telephone operator.

Although the industry hadn’t been around for that long—the first commercial telephone exchange began in January of that year—it had not employed women to dispatch calls. Teenaged boys had filled that role, but managers were beginning to question their fitness for the job. Many of the boys operated below the desired level of decorum, making prank phone calls and failing to have patience with customers.

Nutt was brought in as an antidote to her predecessors’ behavior, and she was quickly praised for her soothing voice and polite manner with customers. Her sister Stella, who began work on the same day, followed suit, and by 1920, more than 177,000 women were employed as telephone operators in the U.S. Over time, women replaced teenaged boys as the majority of that workforce.

Here, in honor of Nutt and the women who followed her, are LIFE’s best photos of women working switchboards through the decades.

Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

Telephone operators, 1938
Operators on the transoceanic switchboard at the Long Distance Building of the New York Telephone Co, 1938.Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Telephone operators, 1938
A telephone operator at the New York Telephone Co. office faces two clock-dials, which show the correct time every four minutes as she announces the time for online telephone customers, 1938.Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Telephone operators, 1938
Novice telephone operators participating in a training session talk into a "voice mirror," which uses a recording device to play their voices back so that they can determine if they are speaking clearly enough, 1938.Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Telephone operators, 1941
Telephone operators work at the switchboard in the Pacific Telephone Chinatown branch, 1941.Peter Stackpole—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Telephone operators, 1941
Telephone operators work side by side, 1941.Hart Preston—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Telephone operators 1944
Operators work in the telephone room of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, 1944.Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Telephone operators, 1947
Two women operate a switchboard during the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone strike, 1947.Yale Joel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Telephone operators, 1952
Hotel switchboard and telephone operators work at the Hilton Hotel, 1952.Ralph Crane—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Telephone operators, 1957
Portrait of a telephone switchboard operator, 1957.Walter Sanders—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Telephone operators, 1961
Women phone operators on Wall Street, 1961.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

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Write to Eliza Berman at eliza.berman@time.com