This period news article explains in detail how telegraph messages were received and transmitted and how the automated system changed things for Ms. Pare, and thousands of clerks like her.

http://news2.nnyln.net/lowville-black-river-democrat/lowville-leader-194...

She is currently posing for a photo. Her duties would include mostly keeping the paper tape messages from piling up on the floor, and making sure that traffic was flowing smoothly. There were higher-level techs who'd deal with trouble.

Those are interesting plugs on the switchboard. They are like phone plugs on steroids, with a bunch of circuits per plug. I have a bunch of WU literature and equipment from the sixties, but nothing like those.

Took me a while to stop focusing on her face, then ogling the technology when I noticed that the "French manicure" isn't as new as I thought.

What's the best analogy for what's going on in the picture? A mail sorting office? A telephone exchange? An internet router?

Is she forwarding individual customer messages to their destination? Is she creating point-to-point circuits to handle the traffic?

Those are Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Model 2b Simplex printers. The "Mor" of "Morkrum" refers to Mr. Joy Morton of Morton Salt. The Model 2b was still in use when I started working for W.U. in 1961 and was being used quite a few years later. It printed to a gummed tape which could be cut and pasted to a telegram blank rather than print to a page.

If she were on a shelf in the corporate suppy room, she'd be listed as "Hot, Smokin', 1 each".

I worked in teletype maintenance in the Air Force from 1966-70. Never worked on this particular machine, but we had some Kleinschmidts up in Thule, Greenland, in 1967 that said "Fungus treated, 1945" inside their cases. I mostly worked on Teletype Corp. M-28s.

Switch me!

The corks weren't there to prevent her from accessing specific circuits. They served to keep dust from contaminating the multiple switch contacts within each jack position. Note the patch still on the dais. Teletype is a 5 bit system (32 characters max), and dirty intermittent contacts could easily transform an important "text" into gibberish.

She didn't stay single for long.

Did workman's comp recognize carpal tunnel syndrome back then?

DEAREST MURIEL -STOP- ARRIVING TOMORROW VIA DELOREAN AUTO -STOP- WILL REQUIRE NEW DROOL BUCKET AND FRESH SHIRT -STOP- YOURS IN TIME, BRIAN -STOP-

Those who I see texting these days aren't nearly as well turned out as the young woman in this photo. Granted, they don't have Esther Bubley's camera pointed at them.

She should be sitting in a drugstore in L.A. waiting to be
discovered instead of hidden away among the gadgets. Hubba Hubba.