![]() In the novel, Feisty Nattie Rogers is a telegraph operator. It was published in 1880 and it provided all those daily details-and more-that I needed for my story. ![]() In these stories, young women found romance with operators they “met” in the course of their job.ĭesiring to learn more about the day-to-day job of the telegraphers, I read Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes by Ella Cheever Thayer. This led to novels and stories being written about them.Ī new literary genre, telegraphic romance, was born. ![]() One fun thing I learned in my research was that the increased number of women in the profession sparked public interest. A year later, 4% of the telegraphers were female and that number continued to rise. Training for female telegraphers became more available when Western Union opened a school for them in 1869. Three years later, Phoebe Wood accepted the position in Albion, Michigan.ĭuring the Civil War, the need for telegraphers heightened when the men enlisted in the military for both sides, putting more women in the industry. ![]() In 1846, Sarah Bagley performed that job in Lowell, Massachusetts. I researched to find out about the daily activities required by the job in 1884.įemale telegraph operators had been hired for the job as early as the 1840s. The heroine in my recent release, A Not So Peaceful Journey, Book 3 in my “Second Chances” series is a telegrapher in Hamilton, Ohio. ![]()
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