A relative who I love and dearly care about, Marie “Mimi” (pictured below) had spent her entire career as a telephone switchboard operator, right up until the very moment she had retired. She had eventually worked her way up to being the boss of other switchboard operators many years her junior, and this was during the time when it was proper for women of the house to stay home, clean, cook; and help raise the children.

Below are videos from the Ma Bell Telephone company (before the divesture of the Ma Bell phone company that had taken place in 1984 upon being forced by the United States Government to do so), and British Telecom of switchboard operators, the switchboard console, switchboard operators doing their jobs of manually connecting one telephone line to another; and when during the 1970’s, 1980’s, and early 1990’s; these telephone companies had laid off the switchboard operators, the profession of a switchboard operator was over as we knew it; and the human switchboard operators were being replaced by mechanized digital line switching equipment.