[GH85Carrera]

A group of switchboard operators at work in Helena in 1906. Montana’s first telephone arrived in 1876, which was the same year Alexander Graham Bell patented his invention. By the 1890s many Montana cities had telephone exchanges. Early female telephone operators worked long hours for low pay. By 1907 Montana legislature enacted a law banning the employment of girls younger than 16 as operators and in 1909 limited operator hours to nine hours per day in cities and towns of more than 3,000 people, except for special circumstances of illness or emergency.