Emma Nutt

Emma Nutt (July 1860–1915) became the world's first female telephone operator on September 1, 1878, when she started working for the Edwin Holmes Telephone Dispatch Company (or the Boston Telephone Dispatch Company) in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.

Life and career

In January 1878, the Boston Telephone Dispatch Company had started hiring boys as telephone operators, starting with George Willard Croy. Boys (reportedly including Nutt's husband) had been very successful as telegraphy operators, but their attitude (lack of patience) and behavior (pranks and cursing) were unacceptable for live phone contact, so the company began hiring women operators instead. Thus, on September 1, 1878, Nutt was hired, starting a career that lasted between 33 and 37 years, ending with her retirement sometime between 1911 and 1915. A few hours after Nutt started working, her sister Stella became the world's second female telephone operator, also making the pair the first two sister telephone operators in history. Unlike her sister, Stella only remained on the job for a few years.

Emma and Stella Nutt, working alongside boy operators in Boston, 1878

The customer response to her soothing, cultured voice and patience was overwhelmingly positive, so boys were soon replaced by women. In 1879 these included Bessie Snow Balance, Emma Landon, Carrie Boldt, and Minnie Schumann, the first female operators in Michigan.

Nutt was hired by Alexander Graham Bell, who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone; apparently, she changed jobs from a local telegraph office. She was paid a salary of $10 per month for a 54-hour week. Reportedly, she could remember every number in the telephone directory of the New England Telephone Company.

To be an operator, a woman had to be unmarried and between the ages of seventeen and twenty-six. She had to look prim and proper and have arms long enough to reach the top of the tall telephone switchboard. Like many other American businesses at the turn of the century, telephone companies discriminated against people from certain ethnic groups and races. For instance, African-American and Jewish women were not allowed to become operators.

1 September is unofficially commemorated as Emma M. Nutt Day.

This special day, conveniently leading up to Labor Day on Monday, honors the world and work of telephone operators. It was a highly important job for many decades, although in recent years most of such positions have been eliminated by automation in telephone systems.