Telegraph

A telegraphist (British English), telegrapher (American English), or telegraph operator is an operator who uses a telegraph key to send and receive the Morse code in order to communicate by land lines or radio.

The telegraph industry grew greatly starting in the 1830s, and reached California about 1860. Only at the very beginning were messages actually transmitted using one finger and a telegraph key, and listening to, decoding, and writing down the content contained in clicks received and heard. Machines to eliminate or reduce the cost and slow speed of a human operator were the subject of repeated innovations.

Telegraphist was one of the first "high-technology" professions of the modern era. Many young men and young women left their farms and fishing communities in the late 19th century to take high-paying jobs as professional telegraph operators. In those early days telegraphers were in such demand that operators could move from place to place and job to job to achieve ever-higher salaries, thereby freeing them from subsistence lives on family farms.

During the Great War the Royal Navy enlisted many volunteers as radio telegraphists. Telegraphists were indispensable at sea in the early days of wireless telegraphy, and many young men were called to sea as professional radiotelegraph operators who were always accorded high-paying officer status at sea. Subsequent to the Titanic disaster and the Radio Act of 1912, the International Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) conventions established the 500kHz maritime distress frequency monitoring and mandated that all passenger-carrying ships carry licensed radio telegraph operators.

High-paying jobs as seagoing ship's radiotelegraphy officers were still common until the late 20th century. In the 21st century, the employment of professional radio telegraphers was largely discontinued in maritime service and replaced by the use of satellite communications services.

The use of Morse code is over a century old. Fluent Morse code telegraphers still enjoy sending Morse code using manually operated mechanical keys or electronic keyers. Although Morse code is no longer used in commercial practices, the use of hand-sent Morse code seems to be growing among amateur radio operators, even though Morse proficiency is no longer required to obtain an amateur radio licence.

Using the computer keyboard or hand-operated telegraph key, today almost all Morse code operators are amateur radio enthusiasts.

Telephone

In the early days of telephones, companies used manual telephone switchboards, and switchboard operators connected calls by inserting a pair of phone plugs into the appropriate jacks. They were gradually phased out and replaced by automated systems, first those allowing direct dialing within a local area, then for long-distance and international direct dialing.

In January 1878 George Willard Croy became the world's first telephone operator when he started working for the Boston Telephone Dispatch company.

Emma Nutt became the first female telephone operator on 1 September 1878 when she started working for the Boston Telephone Dispatch company, because the attitude and behaviour of the teenage boys previously employed as operators was unacceptable. Emma was hired by Alexander Graham Bell and, reportedly, could remember every number in the telephone directory of the New England Telephone Company. More women began to replace men within this sector of the workforce for several reasons. The companies observed that women were generally more courteous to callers, and women's labor was cheap in comparison to men's. Specifically, women were paid from one half to one quarter of a man's salary.

Women of the Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit, American bilingual female switchboard operators in World War I, were known colloquially as Hello Girls and were not formally recognized for their military service until 1978.

Julia O'Connor, a former telephone operator, led the Telephone Operators' Strike of 1919 and the Telephone Operators' Strike of 1923 against New England Telephone Company on behalf of the IBEW Telephone Operators' Department for better wages and working conditions. In the 1919 strike, after five days, Postmaster General Burleson agreed to negotiate an agreement between the union and the telephone company, resulting in an increase in pay for the operators and recognition of the right to bargain collectively. However, the 1923 strike was called off after less than a month without achieving any of its goals.

In the United States, any switchboard operator employed by an independently owned public telephone company which had not more than seven hundred and fifty stations was excluded from the Equal Pay Act of 1963.

In 1983, in Bryant Pond, Maine, Susan Glines became the last switchboard operator for a hand-crank phone when that exchange was converted; manual central office switchboards continued in operation at rural points like Kerman, California, and Wanaaring, New South Wales, as late as 1991, but these were central-battery systems with no hand-cranked magnetos.

Operator Assistance

Operator assistance refers to a telephone call in which the calling party requires an operator to provide some form of assistance in completing the call. This may include telephone calls made from pay phones, calls placed station-to-station, person-to-person, collect, third number calls, calls billed to a credit card, and certain international calls which cannot be dialed directly. The telephone operator may also be able to assist with determining what kind of technical difficulties are occurring on a phone line, to verify whether a line is busy (Busy Line Verification, or BLV), or left off the hook, and break in on a phone line to request for the caller to clear the line for an incoming call (Busy Line Interruption, or BLI). The latter service is often utilized by emergency police. In addition, operators are often a first point of contact for the elderly wanting information on the current date and time.

Before the advent of emergency telephone numbers, operators identified and connected emergency calls to the correct emergency service. Directory assistance was also part of the operator's job.

Operator-assisted calls can be more expensive than direct dial calls. In the Bell System, an operator-assisted call had a 50% premium, but only on the initial period, usually three minutes.

A person-to-person call is an operator-assisted call in which the calling party requests to speak to a specific party and not simply to anyone who answers. The caller is not charged for the call unless the requested party is reached. This method was popular when telephone calls were relatively expensive. The alternative, in which the calling party agrees to talk to whoever answers the telephone, is known as station-to-station. Since the introduction of direct dial telephone service and the subsequent drop in the price of long distance telephone calls, person-to-person service has virtually disappeared. This service may still be used if the calling party wishes to remain anonymous to whoever answered, and wishes to have the operator initiate contact with the desired person.

A messenger call has been used in countries in which home telephones are unusual, and before the boom in cell phones in the early 21st century. A messenger, usually a boy, would go to the recipient's location to advise him or her to come to a central location at a designated time to receive a phone call.

An operator-assisted conference call is one in which the conference call is managed by an operator. The telephone operator will greet each call participant, gather specific information from each participant, introduce key speakers, and manage questions and answers, all from the telephone.

A third number call or third party call is an operator assisted telephone call that can be billed to the party other than the calling and called party. The operator calls the third number for the party to accept the charges before the call can proceed.

Time and charges was a service often requested of the operator before a call begins. After completion of the call, the operator calls back and specifies the length of the call (in minutes) and the charge for the call. While it was used by guests in a residence or business to compensate the host for use of the phone, it was almost always requested by hotel switchboards so that they could bill the room occupant for the charges before the occupant checked out. Modern telephone systems in hotels make this unnecessary, as the calls are rated automatically by the hotel or by a service provider the hotel has contracted with. (Hotels often contract with resellers that charge unusually high rates, with the profit shared between the reseller and the hotel, thus helping the hotel defray the cost of the telephone system.)