Episode 4 "My father swore the kitchen blue" has been released!

EPISODE 4 "MY FATHER SWORE THE KITCHEN BLUE"
Families wanted better, longer lives for their children than what the granite industry could offer. Palmira’s father was furious when she was dating a stone carver. Their family had endured a hard journey to America from Santander, Spain in search of better lives. And it did seem like they were moving up in the world when Palmira landed a job as a switchboard operator. But, Palmira had dreams of becoming a teacher. During the Depression, however, it was hard to see a future beyond being a switchboard operator.
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Oral history transcript to be performed: Palmira Fernandes, Switchboard Operator (1930s, Federal Writers’ Project interview)

​VOICE CREDITS
Narrator: Weiwei Wang

THEME SONG CREDIT
The “John Henry” song at the beginning of our show is from the Alan Lomax Collection at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. Used courtesy of the Association for Cultural Equity.

RESEARCH CITATIONS

• Arguimbau, Ellen. “Number, Please: Women Telephone Operators”. Women’s History Matters. 22 Apr. 2014, http://montanawomenshistory.org/number-please/
• “AT&T Archives: Careers - Toll Operator.” AT&T Archives and History Center, AT&T Tech Channel, 13 Jan. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw7xFtgGbPE.
• Carmi, Elinor. “Taming Noisy Women: Bell Telephone Female Switchboard Operators as a Noise Source.” Research Online, Goldsmiths, University of London, 3 July 2015, research.gold.ac.uk/11969/1/TAMING%20NOISY%20WOMEN%20-%20Elinor%20Carmi_Final%20version.pdf 
• “A History of the Telephone.” Performance by Vernon Joyner, Rod Willerton, 21 Nov. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJgIWqrRDHE 
• “The History of the Telephone.” CNET, 15 Feb. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3RbnsHTuVw 
• Johnson, Dorothy M. “Confessions of a Telephone Girl”. JSTOR, http://montanawomenshistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Johnson-Dorothy-Confessions-of-a-Telephone-Girl.pdf
• Kravif, Hy. “The Telephone and Telegraph Workers”. International Pamphlets. No.44., https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/international-pamphlets/n44-1935-The-Telephone-and-Telegraph-Workers-Hy-Kravit.pdf 
• Latson, Jennifer. “The Woman Who Made History by Answering the Phone.” Time, 1 Sept. 2015, time.com/4011936/emma-nutt/ 
• “‘Number Please’: The Telephone Comes to Vermont.” Green Mountain Chronicles Radio Show, Woodsmoke Productions and Vermont Historical Society, 1988.
• “Operator! (Bonus Edition).” YouTube, Audio Productions, Inc, 1938, www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEy7Zb1Noj8 
• Richards, Susan L. “Gendered Work: Women's Paid Labor in Barre, Vermont and Trinidad, Colorado, 1880-1918.” University of New Hampshire, Durham, 2002.
• Rimer, Sara. “Once a Friendly Fixture, a Telephone Operator Finds Herself Obsolete.” The New 
• York Times, 4 June 1996, www.nytimes.com/1996/06/04/us/once-a-friendly-fixture-a-telephone-operator-finds-herself-obsolete.html. 
• “Training For Service, 1926 - AT&T Archives - Telephone Operator Recruiting.” AT&T Archives and History Center, AT&T Tech Channel, 3 July 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQbwRYCYJzI.
• United States, Congress, U.S. Department of Labor, and Caroline C. Cherrix. “Women Telephone Workers and Changing Technology.” Women Telephone Workers and Changing Technology, U.S. G.P.O., 1963. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0286_dolwb_1963.pdf 
• Woodcock, Jamie. Working the Phones: Control and Resistance in Call Centres. Pluto Press, 2017.

SOUND & MUSIC CREDITS
Music: "Ai, ama! Gaztian nintzanian dama". From the Alan Lomax Collection at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. Association for Cultural Equity.