Thomas C. Jepsen

In the 19th Century and for much of the 20th the typical woman’s place in the workplace was restricted to a few gender specific jobs such as line worker (only in certain industries), seamstress, secretary, school teacher, nurse, etc. Regular employment in any kind of technical field was essentially unheard of…and then, in the 1840’s a new technical marvel arrived on the scene – the telegraph - and with it came the demand for a skilled operator to run it.

The telegraph lines spread rapidly across the United States and Canada and the need/demand for qualified telegraphers quickly outstripped supply. The skills required of a trained operator included such things as clean handwriting, excellent command of English and spelling, the ability to quickly translate letters into code for transmission and to decode coded transmissions and convert the code into written English. The operator also needed an understanding of the equipment and the ability to repair it if necessary. This skill set was something possessed by a large number of women of the day. Because the telegraph and the occupation of telegrapher was newly arrived on the world scene, it did not have prior baggage with respect to practitioner gender. As a result, a great many women were able to become professional, full time, telegraphers and found themselves working side by side with their male counterparts.

Author Jepsen does an admirable job of telling the story of this large group of technically educated women whose skills, job mobility, and independence in the workplace (many of the women were station agents who, in addition to being the telegrapher, were also responsible for all of the other aspects of running a town train station) stands in stark contrast to the standard image of women at work in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

The book opens with a discussion of women in the telegraph industry and how their job evolved over time. The author provides a detailed description of the day-to-day life in a telegraph office (typically a large building with floors of telegraph operators) as well as the daily life of the lone operator at a distant location such as a railroad depot.

Having set the stage with respect to the work and the workplace author Jepsen moves on to describes the interaction of female telegraphers with society (and conversely), their involvement in the labor movements of the 19th and 20th Centuries and their depiction in literature and the movies.

I think My Sisters Telegraphic is a very well written book. I think it would appeal to anyone interested in general history of the 19th and early 20th Centuries, women’s history, history of the impact of technology, or railroad history.… (meer)