Difference between revisions of "325--Week 8 Questions/Comments"

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(Venus Green, Personal Service in the Bell System)
(Women's roles in telephone industry)
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It’s interesting to see the telephone’s early growth into a security system, particularly how women would leave the phone off the hook while they were alone at home so an operator could hear if something happened. Or more so, how some women actually left their children at home alone with the phone as a babysitter that could contact mothers if the children started crying. Paranoid? A little bit. Irresponsible? Very much so. But I think it certainly shows a growing trust in communication technology. -- Taylor Brann
 
It’s interesting to see the telephone’s early growth into a security system, particularly how women would leave the phone off the hook while they were alone at home so an operator could hear if something happened. Or more so, how some women actually left their children at home alone with the phone as a babysitter that could contact mothers if the children started crying. Paranoid? A little bit. Irresponsible? Very much so. But I think it certainly shows a growing trust in communication technology. -- Taylor Brann
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In "Memoir of a Telephone Operator," I found it interesting that women were not only preferred for telephone operating, but boys were actually "abolished."  In response to Taylor, I think that maybe it was not as big a deal for men to be "rowdy" while working at telegraph operating.  They were not speaking directly to people, they were sending messages over the telegraph, in other words, there was no real personal interaction.  I enjoyed this document because, as others pointed out, it led you through the development of the telephone.  Also, I agree with Jimmy that it does seem that the telephone has made a full circle and ended up as a "toy" again.  Much like only prosperous business men were able to have a telephone in the beginning, now only those who are well off are able to have the "best" phone out there - which has so many gadgets on it that it's almost hard to tell that it is even a phone anymore. -- Stefanie Holder
  
 
== Ronell on Thomas Watson ==
 
== Ronell on Thomas Watson ==

Revision as of 02:12, 12 March 2009