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Women in telegraphy have been evident since the 1840s. The introduction of practical systems of telegraphy in the 1840s led to the creation of a new occupational category, the telegrapher or telegraphist. Duties of the telegrapher included sending and receiving telegraphic messages, known as telegrams, using a variety of signaling systems, and routing of trains for the railroads. While telegraphy is often viewed as a males-only occupation, women were also employed as telegraph operators from its earliest days. Telegraphy was one of the first technological occupations open to women. ==Women in the telegraph industry in the United States== Demonstration of a successful system for sending telegraphic messages by Samuel F. B. Morse in 1844 quickly led to the development of a telegraphic network in the eastern United States, constructed and maintained by a number of private companies.〔Thompson, Robert L., ''Wiring A Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States, 1832-1866'' (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947).〕 Operation of this network required skilled operators at each station, capable of sending and receiving messages in Morse code. The shortage of qualified operators led to the hiring of women as well as men to fill a rapidly growing need for operators in the late 1840s as the telegraph spread across the country. Sarah Bagley (1806 - ?), a women's rights advocate and founder of the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association, became the telegraph operator for Francis Ormand Jonathan Smith's New York and Boston Magnetic Telegraph Company in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1846. She probably became aware of the telegraph and its potential from her previous work as an editor for the reform newspaper, the ''Voice of Industry''. Phoebe Wood (1816-1891), sister of Morse's associate Ezra Cornell and wife of telegraph entrepreneur Martin B. Wood, became the telegrapher in Albion, Michigan, in 1849, after Cornell's business partner John James Speed pointed out the need for operators in sparsely populated frontier areas. 〔(【引用サイトリンク】 author= Frank Passic )〕〔Jepsen, ''My Sisters Telegraphic'', pp. 4–5.〕 Initially used to transmit personal messages, business transactions and news reports, the telegraph began to be used for train routing by the railroads as well in the 1850s. Elizabeth Cogley (1833-1922) of Lewistown, Pennsylvania, became one of the earliest women to work as a railroad telegrapher when she was hired by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1855.〔Jepsen, ''My Sisters Telegraphic'', p. 6.〕 The employment of women in the telegraph industry in the United States increased during the American Civil War (1861-1865) as male telegraphers were drafted or joined the U.S. Military Telegraph Corps of the Union army. A few women served in the Military Telegraph Corps. Louisa Volker (1838-1905), the telegraph operator at Mineral Point, Missouri, provided important information on troop movements in her role as Military Telegrapher. After the war, as men returned from the military and competition for jobs arose, male operators began to question the suitability of placing women operators in the telegraph office, and the issue was hotly debated in the telegraph journals. However, when Western Union, the largest telegraph company, opened a telegraph school for women at Cooper Union in 1869 and began to employ large numbers of women, often at lower wages than their male counterparts, the continued presence of women in the industry was assured.〔Melodie Andrews,: "'What the Girls Can Do': The Debate over the Employment of Women in the Early American Telegraph Industry", ''Essays in Economic and Business History 8'' (1990), pp. 109-120.〕 According to the U.S. Census, the percentage of telegraphers who were women in the U.S. grew from four percent in 1870 (355 out of 8316 total) to twenty percent in 1920 (16,860 out of 79,434 total).〔Jepsen, ''My Sisters Telegraphic'', pp. 52-3.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Women in telegraphy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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