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

1918 Back our girls over there United War Work Campaign

 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.

See

A Mighty Girl Blog November 28, 2023

Library of Congress Blogs 

Moving into the 19C - Women Painted by James Earl (1761-1796)

1792 Attributed to James Earl (1761-1796). Portrait of a Woman.

James Earl, the younger brother of artist Ralph Earl (1751-1801), also lived his brief life as an artist. He was born on the family farm in Leicester, Massachusettes, May 1, 1761, and died at age 35 in Charleston, South Carolina, August 18, 1796. Earl painted in London between 1784 & 1794, when he left his young family and sailed to Charleston, South Carolina, painting there until dying suddenly of yellow fever.

1792 Attributed to Jame Earl (1761-1796). Portrait of Frances Horton. Reportedly painted in England.

Nothing is yet published from documented sources of James Earl’s early training, although it is speculated that James Earl either fled to England, when he was 17 with his brother in 1778, or met his brother there in 1784. Ralph Earl returned to Massachusetts in 1785, after a 7 year respite in England, while all that rebel furor cooled. James Earl's paintings after he arrived in Charleston seemed more relaxed & animated, than those he reportedly painted just before leaving London.

1790s Attributed to James Earl (1761-1796). Portrait of a Woman.

James Earl was exhibiting at the Royal Academy in London by 1787, where he continued to exhibit there every year, until he died, including the 2 years he had returned to the United States. He was a formal student at the Royal Academy in 1789.

1794 James Earl (1761-1796). Mrs. John Rogers (Elizabeth Rodman Rogers).

In the same year, Earl married Georgiana Caroline Pilkington Smyth (1759–1838), widow of the Loyalist Joseph Brewer Palmer Smyth of New Jersey & Westminister, England. The new Earl family produced three children: Clara, Phoebe (1790–1863), and Augustus (1793–1838). They also raised widow Smyths’ daughter, Elizabeth Ann, and son, William Henry, with whom Georgiana was pregnant, when Mr. Smyth died. Georgiana would have raised Phoebe & Augustus alone, as they were just toddlers, when their father died in far off Charleston.

1794 James Earl (1761-1796). Mrs. James Courtney.

One obituary published at James Earl's death in 1796, noted he had been in Charleston for about 2 years and that he had lived in London for ten years before that, making his arrival in England about 1784.

1794-6 James Earl (1761-1796). Sophia Bignon de Bonneville.

City Gazette, Charleston, South Carolina 20 August 1796.Died, on the morning og the 18th instant, Mr. James Earl, portrait painter, a native of Massachusettes. In the line of his profession he was excelled by non in America and by very few in Europe. His amiable disposition and agreeable manners, make his sudden death much lamented by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. He has left a wife and three children in London.

1794-96 James Earl (1761-1796). Rebecca Pritchard and her daughter Eliza.

James' children Phoebe & Augustus both became accomplished artists in England. Phoebe was a still-life artist who was appointed fruit & flower painter to Queen Adelaide, the wife of William IV.

Augustus was restless like his uncle & father. He traveled in the Mediterranean (1815–17), North America (1818–20), and South America (1820–24). From 1825-1828, Augustus, who spelled his surname Earle, journeyed to Australia & New Zealand, painting landscapes and portraits of aboriginies & colonial officials.

Like their father, Phoebe & Augustus exhibited at the Royal Academy during the early 1800s; and he also displayed works at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1818, when he visited America..