Telephone Operators

The career of a telephone operator was one of the few technically oriented jobs available to women in the early 1900s.

Women helped customers make long distance calls, provided information, and made sure the whole system worked smoothly.

In the 1880s and 1890s women operators served the same small group of customers every day. In many areas, operators could be counted on to have all sorts of information at hand, such as the names and addresses of local customers, the latest news, weather, sports results, the correct time of day and even gossip.

Bell Telephone considered rural telephone systems unprofitable and left Lambton County to private companies and cooperatives. In Forest the first one was set up in 1889 at a local drug store. Telephones helped connect farms to markets, but also neighbour to neighbour. At the turn of the century the phone helped limit the isolation felt by many women who lived and worked on rural farms.