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| Title | Women at Sunset Telephone switchboard, ca. 1905 |
| Photographer | Webster & Stevens |
| Date | ca. 1905 |
| Caption | In 1883, Sunset Telephone Company became Seattle's first telephone company. By 1893, the company offered local service long-distance calling to Portland. All local and long-distance calls were placed through operators, who connected callers manually through a switchboard. From the beginning, all operators at Sunset were women.
In this photo, two women connect callers at a telephone switchboard. Another woman, possibly their supervisor, looks on. The photo was taken sometime between 1903 and 1906 at the Sunset Telephone office on Third Avenue. |
| Subjects | Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company; Sunset Telephone and Telegraph Company (Seattle, Wash.); Switchboards; Telephone operators; Women--Employment |
| Places | Seattle (Wash.) |
| Digital Collection | Museum of History & Industry Photograph Collection |
| Image Number | 1983.10.7643 |
| 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 original negative using Epson Expression 10000XL as 4350 pixel TIFF image in 16-bit grayscale, resized to 700 pixels in the longest dimension and compressed into JPEG format using Photoshop CS4, JPEG quality measurement 4. |
| Photographer's Reference Number | W&S 5, 622 |
