Some prestige was attached to a job with the telephone company. Compared with the women in the chocolate factory (slide 18), these operators at the Edmonton Telephone Building enjoyed a modicum of comfort: chair backs and slightly less cramped and better lit quarters. Their work was at least "clean," and the telephone company promoted a general air of efficiency. The desks on the left were probably supervisors' stations.
Improved communications played an important role in breaking down isolation, and because earlier technology did not have to be replaced prairie dwellers enjoyed the latest telephone equipment. Edmonton boasted the "first automatic telephone on the American continent."
Courtesy: Provincial Archives of Alberta, E. Brown Collection (B 1482)
