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| Title | Long-distance operators at the Sunset Telephone Company, Seattle, ca. 1905 |
| Photographer | Webster & Stevens |
| Date | ca. 1905 |
| Caption | The Sunset Telephone Company hired men to set poles and run wiring, and women to operate the switchboards. All calls were connected by hand through the switchboard, and the women who made the connections soon became known as the "hello girls."
In this photo, taken sometime between 1903 and 1906, a group of women telephone operators sit at the long distance switchboard in the Sunset Telephone office on Third Avenue. The women wear typical working clothing for the 1900s: a light colored blouse and a dark skirt. Each operator listens to both parties through her headphones, and talks through a speaker hung around her neck. |
| Notes | Handwritten on sleeve: Sunset Telephone Office.
Caption by MOHAI staff. |
| Subjects | Telephone operators--Washington (State)--Seattle; Telephone switchboards--Washington (State)--Seattle; Lamps--Washington (State)--Seattle |
| Places | United States--Washington (State)--Seattle |
| Digital Collection | Museum of History & Industry Photograph Collection |
| Image Number | 1983.10.7641 |
| Ordering Information | To order a reproduction or to inquire about permissions contact photos@mohai.org or phone us at 206-324-1126. Please refer to the Image Number and provide a brief description of the photograph. |
| Credit Line | PEMCO Webster & Stevens Collection, Museum of History & Industry, Seattle; All Rights Reserved |
| Repository | Museum of History & Industry, Seattle (MOHAI) |
| Repository Collection | PEMCO Webster & Stevens Collection |
| Type | Image |
| Physical Description | 1 glass negative: b&w; 8 x 10 in. |
| Digital Reproduction Information | Scanned from print made from original negative as a 3000 pixel TIFF image in 8-bit grayscale, resized to 640 pixels in the longest dimension and compressed into JPEG format using Photoshop 6.0 and its JPEG quality measurement 3. |
| Photographer's Reference Number | 5620 |
