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

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SOCIETY AND THE TELEGRAPH OPERATOR
the only way the operators can secure an ultimate raise without incessant
and usually fruitless demands is to travel from city to city and from one
company to the other.” 67
For women who considered telegraphy a career, moving around became
part of a lifestyle that appears surprisingly contemporary to modern
observers. A career in telegraphy took Fannie Wheeler, the station agent’s
daughter in Vinton, Iowa, from the local railroad depot to the California
boom towns in the late 1860s and early 1870s. Her first move took her to
Waterloo, Iowa; she then relocated to the Chicago Western Union office,
where she managed the newly created ladies’ department in 1869. Soon
thereafter she headed west, first to Omaha and later San Francisco, where
she worked in 1874 and 1875. In 1876 she moved down the California
coast, first to Los Angeles and then to Santa Barbara. The Vinton Eagle for
December 2, 1874, kept hometown readers apprised of her whereabouts,
under the heading “What Can a Woman Do?”:
She can do very much outside of what some people choose to
call a woman’s sphere. We have an instance in point. . . . Miss Fannie
M. Wheeler commenced operating at Blairstown, on the
Northwestern road, before Vinton had a telegraph office. Subsequently
she operated in other places—as Waterloo, Chicago,
Omaha; being now in an office in the city of San Francisco, holding
a responsible position at a good salary. Miss Fannie is regarded
as one of the best operators in the country. While in Chicago
Western Union (Main) office she worked the Union Stock Yard
wire. And on one occasion received 140 messages, without a single
break—a feat, which, probably, not one operator in a hundred
could perform. . . . Who shall say such accomplishments are unladylike
and unrefined. 68
Fannie Wheeler’s story illustrates the unusual freedom of action enjoyed
by women operators in the nineteenth century. Their skills and the
income their trade provided allowed them to change jobs and venues at will;
the telegraphic network gave them information on jobs and opportunities
for travel. Thus women operators were able to transcend the bounds of a
patriarchal society if they chose to do so.
Her relatively high income enabled Mrs. O’Connor of the Chicago
Western Union office to spend her vacation in her homeland, Ireland, in
1875. While there, she noted that the women operators in Ireland were al-