Hello, Central?: Gender, Technology, and Culture in the Formation of Telephone Systems

by Michele Martín and Michaele Martin

Drawing on the rich and unexplored Bell Canada archives in Montreal, Martin analyses the development of the telephone system in Canada, particularly in Ontario and Quebec, from 1878 to 1920. Bell Telephone originally envisaged the telephone as a business tool for a relatively small group of male professionals. The women who worked as operators -- an occupation which rapidly became a female ghetto -- played a key role in mediating the demands of telephone...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0773508309
• ISBN13: 9780773508309
• Release Date: August 1991
• Publisher: Carleton University Press
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.