On this day in 1878, the first female telephone operator was hired and the sales of women shoesskyrocketed once again.

Emma Mills Nutt became the world’s first female telephone operator on 1 September 1878 when she started working for the Edwin Holmes Telephone Dispatch Company (or the Boston Telephone Dispatch company) in Boston, Massachusetts.

In January 1878 the Boston Telephone Dispatch company had started hiring boys as telephone operators, starting with George Willard Croy. Boys (including reportedly Emma’s husband) had been very successful as telegraphy operators, but their attitude (lack of patience) and behaviour (pranks and cursing) was unacceptable for live phone contact, so the company began hiring women operators instead. Thus, on September 1 1878, Emma was hired, starting a career that lasted 33 or 37 years, retiring in 1911 or 1915. A few hours after Emma started work her sister Stella Nutt became the world’s second female telephone operator, although, unlike Emma, she only stayed for a few years.

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