•––• •••–• ••••–
That’s “134” in Morse code, if you read • as “dit” and – as “dah.”
“134” means “Who is at the key?”
This is what 134 wrote in the December, 1864 issue of Telegrapher:
now there is a prejudice against lady operators, and the very word he uses, “prejudice” (being a noun in that relation), which, according to Webster means premature opinion; injury; damage, admits that it is merely a myth. Who that wishes to do right, stops for a moment to listen to the voice of prejudice?
I’d known there were female telegraphers up and down the network that bloomed across the States in the latter half of the 19th century. I’ve read The Victorian Internet. (The comparison is not so half-baked as it might seem. —The first online romance kicked off in 1860-something. Honest.) Prejudice (and myths of women’s fingers having a lighter touch on the wire) aside, there was no qualitative difference between men’s and women’s tapping; women were cheaper than men; Western Union liked cheap. The telegraph hubs in most major urban centers employed dormitories full of women, taking in messages from one branch, retransmitting them down another. Women first began filling commercial telegrapher roles in great numbers with the advent of the Civil War, when male operators were drafted into military telegraphy; when the war ended, and those men came back to find women competing for their jobs, we saw some of the tensions of the late 1940s and 1950s play themselves out in microcosm, 80 years before. Here’s what TA had to say on the subject of the American Telegraph Company training women in Morse code for free in the hopes of employing them as operators—at, he feared, a lower rate than men (and thus more attractive to General Marshall Lefferts, American’s owner):
What operators should do to protect themselves from ‘hard times’ is to keep the ladies out of the National Telegraphic Union, and also as much as possible off the lines.
I’d known this, vaguely, sort of, in the back of the brain, having read that book a couple of years ago, and then jotted down some notes about a 19th century dot-com satire that didn’t end up going anywhere in time. (Think about it: San Francisco was hip back then, too.) —So it was nice tonight, on an unrelated search (looking for various types of radio operator slang and shorthand), to stumble over a paper that sums up the debate that raged in the letters column of Telegrapher on this subject. (Since turned into a book. Hmm.) Here, for instance, is Magnetta’s response to TA:
I asked myself, do I live in the nineteenth century…? or are the days of barbarism rolling back upon us, and are we to do homage to the god of selfishness?...All the spleen that may be vented will not assure us that General Lefferts, in opening a way for ladies to become operators, does it from such selfish motives as those stated. Henry Ward Beecher, and John B. Gough, strive in their lectures to convince people of woman’s proper sphere. General Lefferts does more; he gives us a helping hand, and places us where we can prove ourselves equal to the best of you, if only we persevere.
“Protect from hard times—keep ladies out of Union; also off the lines!” Sir! you weighed your soul in that remark! Please examine that weight closely. But how I shudder as I imagine your mother at home washing your linen, while your sister blacks your boots!
And that’s not even the kicker. Go on, click through, browse; keep your eyes peeled for Josie, and what she has to say. (Josie is my new hero.) —And also be sure to note that 134’s letter itself is preserved in all its glory.
God, I love the internet. Sometimes.
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Aw shucks
Jeanne d’Arc has not only done me the honor of adding me to her blog roll, but paid me some
Aw shucks
Jeanne d’Arc has not only done me the honor of adding me to her blog roll, but paid me some
this stinks
Could you be more specific, Semore? Customer always being right and all. Can't very well tailor your Long Story experience to fit your needs without specifics, now, can I?