Today is...

[IceWizard]

Thusday 1 Sep 2016

Letter Writing Day



For hundreds of years communication took place through just a couple of ways, you either sat down and had a conversation with someone or you wrote your thoughts and feelings down on a letter and had it delivered to them by courier.

The nature of letters made them incredibly intimate, as each carried the indelible mark of its creator. Everything from the subtle scents of your home and perfume, to snippings from your garden could be included in a mailed letter.

Digital media just doesn’t quite carry the same personal level as this old method, and Letter Writing Day is your opportunity to remember the wonders of the hand-written word.

History of Letter Writing Day

World Letter Writing Day was established by Richard Simpkin as a tribute to the joy and excitement he felt when a hand-written letter would arrive in his mailbox.

His appreciation of the hand-written word came about as a result of a project he was working on called “Australian Legends”, he would send out letters to everyone he considered to be an Australian Legend with the interest of arranging a personal interview and photography session.

There was just something amazing about receiving a letter with the legends own personal touch to it, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that while hand-written letters are collectible, digital communication certainly is not.

And



Emma M Nutt Day



Long ago, in 1878, the first telephone operator started working for the Boston Telephone Dispatch Company. What image do you have in your mind when you think of a phone operator? Clean white blouse, sensible ankle length skirt, and a friendly female voice? You may be surprised that the first operator was a man, in fact all of the first ones were. But their reign wasn’t to last, in September of 1878 Emma M Nutt became the first female phone operator, and from that point forward it’s been a woman’s industry.

Emma M Nutt Day celebrates this pioneer and all she and her fellow operators have done for communication since!

History of Emma M Nutt Day

As mentioned above, the first operators were all boys, and while we’re not huge fans of the phrase ‘boys will be boys’ in modern parlance, it was definitely something that was well believed back in the early days of telephone.

Boys who were put in the position of telephone operators exhibited a basic lack of patience, and behaviors that included pranks and cussing, which just wouldn’t do for the people who were supposed to be the friendly voice of a telephone operator.

So it was that Emma M Nutt came to join the New England Telephone Company, and whose cultured, gentle voice set the standard for what an operator was supposed to sound like.

She was a true rock star at what she did too, working a 54-hour week at a rate of $10 a month and memorizing every number in the New EnglandTelephone Company directory.

She then went on to work for the company for between 33 and 37 years, ultimately retiring. For a few years she even worked alongside her sister Stella Nutt, creating the first sister pair of operators in history too!


Emma M. Nutt

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September 1 Birthdays


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