My Sisters Telegraphic: Women in the Telegraph Office ... - Monoskop

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WOMEN TELEGRAPHERS IN LITERATURE AND CINEMA
with the “external” view (how society perceived women as telegraph operators)
presented by the male authors of “Along the Wires” and “The Thorsdale
Telegraphs.”
Of the three stories, only “Wooing by Wire” discusses the issue of
women in the telegraph office and how they were perceived by their male
co-workers from the point of view of the operator herself. While Annette
has no thoughts about her presence in a male-dominated field, and Mary
Brown concludes that she has no place in the telegraph office, Mildred simply
gives notice that she is here and that the men should accustom themselves
to it; her self-confident attitude is owing in part to the steadily
increasing numbers of women in telegraphy by the mid-1870s.
Jo’s story reflects the conventional view that for most women of the age,
marriage and family were the primary goals, but there is a subtext which
says that having a fulfilling professional career is not incompatible with
marriage and family. If one undertakes a career, it should be challenging and
fulfilling in and of itself. Readers of the Telegrapher were already aware of
Jo’s views on the subject: “The grand thing for girls, as well as for men, is to
find something to do, and then do it heartily. As Carlyle says, ‘An endless
significance lies in work: in idleness alone there is perpetual despair.’ It is
surely far better for us to be engaged in some useful business, earning our
own living and making the most of our abilities, than to sit idly with folded
hands waiting for the ‘coming man’, who is often so long in coming and
worth so little when he arrives.” 9
All three stories suggest that women operators experienced a sense of
isolation; Annette, Mary, and Mildred are all described as being “alone” to
one degree or another. This derives in part, to be sure, from their socioeconomic
status; like the majority of nineteenth-century working women, they
work because they have no patriarchal family to support them and thus are
lacking both familial connections and the time to enjoy a social life. Anne
Barnes Layton’s statement that her work caused her to “miss a lot of social
life” corroborates this view. But it is also possible that their sense of isolation
related to the technical nature of their work; few understood the workings
of the telegraph in the mid-nineteenth century, and their technical
skills must have set them apart from their contemporaries. The technical
skills that separated women operators “from the rest of the crowd,” to use
Minnie Swan’s expression, may have contributed to a sense of social alienation.