We May All Soon Be 'First-Class Men
Gender and Skill in Canada's Early Twentieth Century Urban Telegraph Industry
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5077795 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Shirley Tillotson (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1991 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Pages | 97 |
| Publication date | 1991-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Labour / Le Travail (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0700-3862 • E-ISSN: 1911-4842 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/25130246 |
| OpenAlex | W1564453543 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Urban telegraph offices in the early twentieth century employed both women and men as telegraph operators. The fact that both sexes worked together in this skilled occupation makes telegraphy an interesting case for the study of links between gender and skill. Through an examination of the labour process and the telegraph operators' craft culture, this paper describes how the connection between masculinity and skill was established. It is suggested that, while Morse operating provided conditions in which that link was questioned, technological change during World War I helped create a more exaggerated gender division of labour and a newly-defined, fortified link between masculinity and ability Resume Au debut du vingtieme siecle, les postes de telegraphistes en milieu urbain etaient occupes autant par des femmes que par des hommes. L'existence d'une telle main-d'œuvre mixte en telegraphie rend cette occupation qualifiee particulierement interessante pour l'etude des liens entre les attributs des sexes et de la qualification. En examinant le proces de travail et l'identite culturelle des telegraphistes, cet article decrit comment se concretisa l'enchainement entre la masculinite et la competence de ces operateurs. Quoique la transmission par l'alphabet Morse s'effectuait suivant des conditions propres a remettre en question une telle identification sexuelle, les changements technologiques au cours de la premiere Guerre mondiale nous apparaissent comme ayant contribue a accentuer la division sexuelle du travail et a lier encore plus etroitement la masculinite a l'habilete des telegraphistes
Class (philosophy · Sociology · Canadian Identity and History · Computer Science · Gender Studies · History
| Citations per year | 0.09 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1993 - 2014 (22) |
| Highly cited | No |