Hello Girls

For the British TV series, see The Hello Girls.

Hello Girls operating switchboards in Chaumont, France during WWI

Hello Girls was the colloquial name for American female switchboard operators in World War I, formally known as the Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit. During World War I, these switchboard operators were sworn into the U.S. Army Signal Corps.

This corps were formed in 1917 from a call by General John J. Pershing to improve the worsening state of communications on the Western front. Applicants had to be bilingual in English and French to ensure that orders would be heard by anyone. Over 7,000 women applied, but only 223 women were accepted. Many of these women were former switchboard operators or employees at telecommunications companies. They completed their Signal Corps training at Camp Franklin, now a part of Fort George G. Meade in Maryland.

History of the term

Although the term "hello girls" may have been applied to the signalling corps, it did not originate there. Rather, the term was first coined for female telephone switchboard operators in the US, and was the common term used for women who would greet callers with "hello" when they rang the switchboard instead of dialling another telephone number directly. Published references to "hello girls" predating World War I include the following sentence from Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court written in 1889: "The humblest hello-girl along ten thousand miles of wire could teach gentleness, patience, modesty, manners, to the highest duchess in Arthur's land". Another source referenced gifts that the "hello girls" received at Christmas-time from local businesses in Flint.

Service

In September 1917, as male recruits were being shipped to France, the commanders of various Army camps in the continental United States began asking for permission to build facilities to house women telephone operators to maintain their communications. Although the War Department declared that no women should be employed except nurses attached to hospitals, the Signal Corps and AT&T convinced Secretary of War Newton Baker that the highly trained, experienced women operators were essential, and barracks for women began to be built in October. To assuage public concern, Baker permitted women to be hired only when men were unavailable and ordered that the women be under constant supervision, and that they must be "of mature age and high moral character".

The communication difficulties in France due to a shortage of switchboard operators and the language differences frustrated Pershing. Several officers in the Signal Corps proposed that they recruit bilingual American women. Agreeing, Pershing sent a November 8, 1917 cable:

On account of the great difficulty of obtaining properly qualified men, request organization and dispatch to France of force of Woman telephone operators all speaking French and English equally well.

The initial staffing requirements specified by Pershing were 3 chief operators, 9 supervising operators, 78 local and long-distance operators, 10 substitutes, and one man (a commissioned captain) to generally supervise traffic. Recruiting focused on fluency in French, as that was presumed to be the more difficult qualification to meet. AT&T offered to provide telephone operating training to bilingual recruits who lacked switchboard experience.

After training, the first operators, under the lead of Chief Operator Grace Banker, left for Europe in March 1918. Members of this unit were soon operating telephones in many exchanges of the American Expeditionary Forces in Paris, Chaumont, and seventy-five other French locations as well as British locations in London, Southampton, and Winchester. The Chief Operator of the Second American Unit of Telephone Operators was Inez Crittenden of California.

By July 1918, the Army telephone service in France tripled the number of calls per day due to the addition of the women operators. Soon, more American-built circuits had been added to locations in France, reducing reliance on French switchboards. The Signal Corps relaxed the bilingual requirement for new women recruits. In September, 1918, Pershing informed the War Department of the immediate need for 130 additional operators and for 40 more every six weeks through 1919.

Chief Operator Grace Banker receiving the Distinguished Service Medal

The War Department was not equipped to provide housing for the women operators overseas and reached an agreement with the YWCA to take over billeting, supplies, and chaperonage for the telephone operator units. During the Meuse–Argonne offensive, a team of telephone operators accompanied Pershing to Souilly, where they maintained communications around the clock. A YWCA secretary accompanied the team and arranged billeting for the women in an old shed that had been used to house French troops during the Battle of Verdun. Each of these operators near the front line managed 50 phone lines connected to the Army's Operations Section. As described by one of the operators:

Every order for an infantry advance, a barrage preparatory to the taking of a new objective, and, in fact, for every troop movement, came over the 'fighting lines', as we called them.

Two days after the Armistice, the chief signal officer for the First Army stated in his official report "a large part of the success of the communications of this Army is due to...a competent staff of women operators." Thirty of the operators received special commendations, many signed personally by Pershing, and Chief Operator Grace Banker was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.

The operators were still considered essential after hostilities ceased, with many of the women being transferred to Paris. Individual operators were gradually discharged through 1919, with the final operator being discharged on January 20, 1920.

Military status

The status of the women operators in the Army Signal Corps was muddled from the start. The women were issued military uniforms and took the Army oath. However, the adjutant general of the Unites States sent an internal memo stating that the women were civilian employees, "authorized by contract and not by Army regulations". No contracts were ever prepared though. The Army's lawyers determined that the women were not eligible for war risk insurance because they were civilian employees. In June, 1918, the House of Representatives passed a bill authorizing war risk insurance for "women serving by official designation with the Army in the American overseas forces as telephone and telegraph operators", however that provision was deleted by the Senate.

In the press, news stories declared that the Army was recruiting women, that they would be "enlisted for the duration of the war", and referred to "young women soldiers". The telephone companies said the "girl telephone operators" would be "regular army". The letter sent to potential recruits stated "This will be the only unit composed of women which will actually wear Army insignia." The women were required to purchase their own kits, including uniforms, shoes, hats, and insignia, at a cost between $250 and $350, because they were told that their status was similar to officers who required individually-fitted uniforms; the monthly salary for most positions was $60.

Almost immediately after the war ended, the status of the telephone operators became a matter of contention. The women attempted to obtain official discharge papers and were refused. Leading Army officers, such as General George Squier, attempted to have the operators included in the federal bonuses being granted to "all persons serving in the military or naval forces"; their efforts were spurned by the War Department which insisted that the telephone operators were civilian employees. Squier and other officers continued to seek military recognition of the Hello Girls, to no avail.

Although they wore U.S. Army Uniforms and were subject to Army Regulations, they were not given honorable discharges but were considered "civilians" employed by the military. Multiple efforts were efforts were made to obtain Congressional recognition of the Signal Corps telephone operators in the decades after the war, with at least 24 bills being introduced between 1927 and 1977. Former operator Merle Egan Anderson persisted with efforts to have the operators recognized into the 1970s, by which time she was an elderly widow. Despite opposition by the Army, the Veterans Administration, and even the American Legion, the campaign by Anderson and others finally resulted in a bill passing and being signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in November, 1977.

It took 60 years after of the end of World War I before Congress approved Veteran Status/Honorable discharges for the remaining "Hello Girls." A Hello Girl uniform is on display at the U.S. Army Signal Museum. The uniform was worn by Louise Ruffe, a U.S. Signal Corps telephone operator.

Recognition

In 2018, the musical The Hello Girls had its world premiere in New York City. The off Broadway cast recording was released in 2019.

As of 2021, the "Hello Girls Congressional Gold Medal Act" was still pending.

In 2021, the children's book Grace Banker and the Hello Girls Answer the Call, written by Claudiel Friddell and illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley, was published.

Further reading

• Yockelson, Mitchell, Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing's Warriors Came Of Age to Defeat The Germany Army In World War I, New American Library