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Holmes (Burton) Films, Inc.Telephone and Telegraph (1946)

Telecommunications workers in the analog era.


This movie is part of the collection: Prelinger Archives

Producer: Holmes (Burton) Films, Inc.
Sponsor: Vocational Guidance Films, Inc.
Audio/Visual: Sd, B&W
Keywords: Occupations: Communications; Communication: Telephone; Communication: Telegraph

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: Spuzz - - July 4, 2005
Subject: I wanna be an operator!
Once again, we have a 'Your Life's Work' that dictates the work that you will work in, according to your gender. In other words, the boys get all the technical stuff, and the ladies will get the operator positions. Waaah! No fair! I'm typing this as I wait for calls as an operator for a call center, (Yes, it's really slow at the moment), and I gotta say, what if you like talking to people. Have a strong customer service background, and are detailed? Well, I suppose there WAS sales... Anyways, this film is made for the pretense that if you WERE thinking about this career, and it WAS 1950's America, that that would be perfectly fine. Lots of shots of people setting up telephone poles, wires, and the maintenance of various telecommunications devices. (I never knew fax machines existed then! This was a fun overview, but a tad sexist.

Reviewer: Wilford B. Wolf - - March 21, 2005
Subject: Brought to you by Western Union. Stop.
Late 40's vocational film covering the careers in telegraph and telephone industries. Lots of shots of analog telecommuications equipment, along with mention of early radio-telephone and facsimilie machines. What I found interesting is how up front gender divided the roles were (women as operators and teletype operators where a high school education would be "useful"; men as couriers, engineers and managers, the later two urged to get a college degree). It also appears that some of the footage, such as the historical recreations of the late 19th century Western Union office and Bell's telephone, probably came from other industrial films.

Overall, decent information about a time gone by, and probably more interest to telecom geeks, but fairly average in the end. Would make a good source for mechanical or telecom imagery.

Shotlist

Shows the similarity of jobs in the telephone industry with that of telegraph work. Describes the many opportunities in these vocations and tells of the skills required to qualify.
Ken Smith sez: This entry in the Your Life's Work series of films shows us that men have a fine future in the telephone and telegraph industries -- working anywhere from research to maintenance, and as anything from technicians to engineers to installers to testers to managers to executives. "Girls," on the other hand, can only find positions as sorters or operators, or as members of the "clerical force."
"More than a million prominent businessmen began their careers as Western Union messengers!" the narrator exclaims. "Here young men learn the business skills and meet the people who will help advance their careers!" Messenger jobs, as you may have guessed, were not open to the fair sex.

TELEPHONES TELEGRAPHY COMMUNICATIONS VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE TRAINING JOBS EMPLOYMENT CAREERS INDUSTRIES LABOR SERVICE OCCUPATIONS