Female Switchboard Operators Trained in 19C Recruited to Serve in World War I

1918 Back our girls over there by Clarence F. Underwood, (Painter, Illustrator, 1871-1929)

 After the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, General John Pershing discovered that military communications on the Western Front were in disarray. In response, he called for women to join the U.S. Army Signal Corps & become "switchboard soldiers." At the time, author Elizabeth Cobbs observed, “telephones were the only military technology in which the United States enjoyed clear superiority" & 80 percent of all telephone operators were women. More than 7,600 women applied for the first 100 positions before applications for the newly formed Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit were even printed. 

From the thousands of American women who applied to be "Hello Girls," as they became known colloquially -- all of whom had to be bilingual in English & French -- only 223 were ultimately accepted into the unit. The women of the Signal Corps soon took over the critical role of connecting military telephones across the front, allowing the front lines to communicate quickly with commanders; at the height of the war, they were connecting 150,000 calls a day.

Most of the women accepted into the Signal Corps were already experienced switchboard operators &, after completing Army training in Maryland, the first operators left for Europe in 1918 under the lead of Chief Operator Grace Banker, a Barnard College graduate who worked as a switchboards instructor. Soon, members of the unit were operating the switchboards for the American Expeditionary Forces in Paris & 75 other French locations as well as multiple locations in Britain. By July, the Hello Girls had tripled the number of calls that could be managed by the Army telephone service in France, vastly improving war-front communications.

When Banker arrived with the first team of 33 telephone operators, they were assigned to the American Expeditionary Force Headquarters in Chaumont, France. Later, as the final major Allied offenses of the war approached, Banker was asked to move to the front, along with her five best operators. During the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, equipped with gas masks & helmets, they operated from the trenches under artillery bombing. Banker was later honored with the U.S. Army's Distinguished Service Medal for her services with the First Army headquarters during the St. Mihiel & Meuse-Argonne Offensives. Following the Armistice, Banker continued to work with the Army of Occupation at Coblenz, Germany until she returned home in September 1919.

Shortly after the Armistice, the chief signal officer for the First Army wrote in his final report that "a large part of the success of the communications of this Army is due to... a competent staff of women operators." The women of the Army Signal Corps swore the Army oath, wore regulation uniforms, observed military protocol, & served courageously under often harrowing conditions, yet after the war, the women discovered that U.S. government considered them "civilian" employees. By denying them veteran status, the women who had served were denied veterans benefits, medical care, honorable discharges, military funerals, & even the right to wear their uniforms.

At least 24 bills were introduced to the U.S. Congress over the course of 50 years to have the signal operators' military service officially recognized. It wasn't until 1977, when only eighteen of the original Hello Girls were still alive, that a campaign led by former operator Merle Egan Anderson finally resulted in a bill successfully passing & being signed by President Carter that officially recognizing the veterans' status of the Signal Corps telephone operators. Egan herself finally received her official discharge paper in a ceremony in Washington in 1979 when she was 91 years old.

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A Mighty Girl Blog November 28, 2023

Library of Congress Blogs 

American Gardens & Parks for Everyone

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925). Portrait of Fredrick Law Olmstead.
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The Grandchildren's Chickens

.Winslow Homer (American artist, 1836-1910) Fresh Eggs
Just in time for the holidays, our grandchildren's 11 chickens are finally all producing an egg each daily. While the chicks are searching for new places to hide their productions each day, we are all scrambling to find new egg recipes.

Thomas Waterman Wood (American artist, 1823–1903) Fresh Eggs
Thomas Waterman Wood (American artist, 1823–1903) Not an Egg.

19C American Soda Fountains, Phopsphates, & Drinks They Served

Eating ice cream soda, 1906 Sun, Aug 12, 1906 – Page 24 · Omaha Daily Bee (Omaha, Nebraska) What were soda fountains? The simplest answer is that a soda fountain was an apparatus that dispensed carbonated water (known as “soda water” in the United States). But the term eventually expanded to also mean the area inside a business (often a counter) where a person could order a fountain drink.The soda fountain machine was invented in Europe in the late 1700s, & by the early 1800s soda water had become a trend in the United States, with sellers adding fruits & syrups for flavor. But the late 19C saw increased customer demand for fancier drinks beyond flavored soda water.Soda fountains were frequently found at pharmacies but were also located inside department stores, bakeries, ice cream parlors, restaurants, & more. The employees who worked behind the counters were known as “soda fountain clerks” or “soda water jerkers” (and later “soda jerks”).From their 18C origins, soda fountains remained popular in the United States through the 1950s, when drive-ins & car culture led to their decline.“Phosphates,” also known as “phosphate sodas,” were made by mixing acid phosphate (phosphoric acid & mineral salts) with soda water & flavoring. The acid phosphate gave the drink a tart or sour taste.  Phosphate sodas came in a wide variety of flavors, but lemon phosphates, cherry phosphates, & egg phosphates were a few of the most common. Fruit flavors make sense given the tartness of phosphates, but egg?Egg phosphates & other egg-based drinks were actually quite popular at 19C soda fountains. Egg phosphates were made of raw egg, soda water, phosphate, & orange, lemon, or chocolate syrup. Other common egg drinks a person could order included eggnog, egg flip, egg lemonade, & more. A milkshake’s name was originally much more literal—a beverage made of milk shaken together with crushed or shaved ice, flavoring, & sometimes raw egg. Eventually, ice cream began making its way into the milkshake, creating the dessert we’re familiar with today. But as this ad from 1930 shows, some businesses still saw the need to specify that their milkshakes included ice cream well into the 20th century.While milkshakes had their moment of popularity, they were overshadowed by what was arguably the most popular offering at a 19C soda fountain: ice cream soda (now often called an ice cream float).While a version of ice cream soda existed before the Civil War, that older version was made of flavored soda water mixed with cream & ice. The new ice cream soda—likely created in the 1870s—replaced the cream & ice with ice cream. The drink quickly gained popularity & spread around the country, & by the 1890s no soda fountain’s menu was complete without it.The soda fountain’s beverage options didn’t stop with phosphates, milkshakes, & ice cream sodas.The plethora of soda fountains in any given city meant businesses competed for customers by offering an ever-growing menu of drinks—with upward of 50 (sometimes 100) options at the larger fountains. Some of the beverages (like the Moxie & Coca-Cola mentioned in a 1896 Nebraska ad) were commercially manufactured name-brand drinks. But many soda fountain offerings were invented & made in-house. Since many beverages offered at soda fountains were served cold, it’s no surprise that soda fountains typically did their best business in the summer. But they attracted customers in colder months too with offerings like “hot soda water,” & beef tea, plus coffee, & hot chocolate, which were popular drinks in 18C America.See Newspapers.com