Snapshots of the Past

[Women switchboard operators working in telephone company, Washington, D.C.] – Historic Reproduction

[Women switchboard operators working in telephone company, Washington, D.C.], [no date recorded on caption card] — historic photograph
[Women switchboard operators working in telephone company, Washington, D.C.], [no date recorded on caption card]. Historic photograph from the Washington DC collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

A window into the past: [Women switchboard operators working in telephone company, Washington, D.C.], preserved in this historic photograph. An authentic image from the Library of Congress, it carries the weight of the real historical record.

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[Women switchboard operators working in telephone company, Washington, D.C.]

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Two women operators sit at a telephone switchboard in Washington, D.C., plugging calls into the rows of jacks that connected subscribers before automatic dialing. Telephone companies began hiring young women for this work in the late 1800s, partly because managers judged them patient and courteous, and by the early 1900s the switchboard floor was one of the most common workplaces for women in urban offices. The print came from Underwood & Underwood, a firm known for mass-produced photographs and stereoviews. The caption card gives no date, but its tracings place the picture in the early twentieth century.

Created / published[no date recorded on caption card]
Medium1 photographic print.
SubjectsPhotoprint by Underwood & Underwood. No. 47272R. This record contains unverified data from caption card. Caption card tracings: Wash. (DC)--Misc.--19--; Telephone--19--; Women--Employ.--19--; Photog. I.; Shelf.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,536 × 1,224 px · prints to 5 × 4 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-152561

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