Today, our phones are permanent fixtures in our lives. Most Scott County residents take their capacity for instantaneous global connections for granted. Telephones first came to Scott County In the 1880s, and quickly changed the face of county-wide communication. First citizens relished the ability to talk to their neighbors. Soon, they wanted the ability to communicate with the wider world.
From the Scott County Argus, June 1, 1933
By 1882, Joesph Strunk of Strunk’s Drug Store convinced the Bell phone company to run a line connecting Shakopee to the Twin Cities. The company was initially resistant to his proposal, claiming that Shakopee was not large enough to be worth the effort. Strunk finally got his wish by agreeing to pre-pay for $500.00 of long-distance calls as an offset the $1200.00 cost of installing the line. By 1886, other businesses around Shakopee had hired “unlicensed local talent” to connect their businesses to Strunk’s long distance access. Before long, the web of lines had spread throughout the county. These were not private communication networks. For many years, Scott County had party lines.
If you haven’t heard of this concept, when using a party line you picked up the phone and talked to an operator. That operator then physically moved a plug to connect your call. There were only so many lines, and only one person could be on them at once. If you were on the phone, your neighbor would hear the call when they picked up the receiver, and would be unable to place a call themselves until you were finished.
“All A’s For Alice” From the Shakopee Argus Tribune, March 20, 1947
At the telephone’s conception, the first telephone operators were teenage boys- it was an entry level part time job, similar to getting a job at McDonalds or as a grocery clerk today. Early customers complained about the disrespectful tone and language of these operators. Alexander Graham Bell had the solution of replacing one of them with a women. At the time women were thought to be naturally more patient and soothing. By the end of the 1880s, the job of telephone operator was considered exclusively a female trade.
Telephone employees, operators and linesmen. Belle Plaine, 1900
Telephone Operator, New Prague 1910
Unfortunately once the job of telephone operator became to be know as exclusively female, the pay (predictably) lowered. Emma Nutt, the first American female telephone operator who was picked by Bell himself made only 10$ for a 54 hour week.
In 1919, East Coast telephone operators went on strike, shutting down phones across New England and eventually won a wage increase.
This movement for equitable pay in the Telephone industry hit Scott County as well. On April 3rd, 1947 the following ad appeared in the Shakopee Argus Tribune
Shakopee Argus Tribune, April 3rd, 1947
In spite of the company’s unusual bid for public sympathy, on April 2nd the Shakopee phone operators, along with two linesmen, went on strike
Shakopee Argus, April 10, 1947
Telephone operators remained a fixture, and almost exclusively female one, for a long time. 1973 saw a national strike of female Bell operators. Along with the strike, the women filed a complaint with the EEOC. They pointed out that almost all operators were female- a low wage job with little advancement, while better paying management and repair positions were almost all male. The company responded by hiring more men to be operators, but other positions remained bereft of women.
Operators remained an essential part of telephone service until the late 1990s, an occupation that lasted over 100 years in spite of changing technology. The job even outlasted Strunk’s Drug Store which finally closed in 1977
Today, Scott County residents (along with the rest of the globe) independently operate the vast communication powers of their own phones- for better or for worse. Come visit the Tools of the Trade exhibit at the Scott County Historical Society to try out several eras of Scott county phones, or harness the powers of your own phone and check out our upcoming events at scottcountyhistory.org
Written by Rose James, SCHS Program Manager