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    Cover of The Small and the Mighty
    Biography

    The Small and the Mighty

    by

    Chap­ter 13 high­lights the piv­otal role that women played dur­ing World War I, espe­cial­ly in the realm of telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions. As the Unit­ed States pre­pared to enter the war in 1916, the nation’s mil­i­tary was still under­de­vel­oped, but its telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion indus­try, led by com­pa­nies such as Amer­i­can Tele­phone & Tele­graph (AT&T), was already thriv­ing. In the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, mak­ing a phone call was a far more com­plex process than it is today. Instead of dial­ing a num­ber, users had to rely on oper­a­tors, who man­u­al­ly con­nect­ed calls using intri­cate sig­nal­ing sys­tems. When the Unit­ed States joined the war, AT&T was enlist­ed to pro­vide cru­cial telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions equip­ment, but there was an addi­tion­al need for skilled oper­a­tors, many of whom were women. Giv­en the lan­guage bar­ri­ers and the neces­si­ty of work­ing in France, a large num­ber of appli­cants, 223 in total, stepped for­ward for the posi­tion, lat­er to be known as the “Hel­lo Girls.” These women were not just man­ag­ing calls; they were tasked with ensur­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion across war zones and facil­i­tat­ing oper­a­tions in a high­ly sen­si­tive and dan­ger­ous envi­ron­ment.

    The women who became part of this vital work­force were faced with extreme chal­lenges. Not only did they need to be flu­ent in French, as they would be sta­tioned in France, but they also had to nav­i­gate the hard­ships of wartime com­mu­ni­ca­tion, often work­ing under har­row­ing con­di­tions at the front lines. Although they pro­vid­ed an indis­pens­able ser­vice to the mil­i­tary, they faced lit­tle to no gov­ern­ment sup­port or recog­ni­tion. Ini­tial­ly, Pres­i­dent Woodrow Wil­son opposed the idea of grant­i­ng women the right to vote, which meant that their con­tri­bu­tions in pub­lic roles were large­ly ignored. How­ev­er, their com­pe­tence and brav­ery grad­u­al­ly helped change pub­lic per­cep­tions. As they proved their val­ue in crit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions dur­ing the war, Wilson’s oppo­si­tion to suf­frage began to waver, in part due to the unde­ni­able neces­si­ty of their work. Yet, despite their vital role in the war effort, they were still denied the recog­ni­tion that they deserved, par­tic­u­lar­ly in terms of mil­i­tary sta­tus and ben­e­fits.

    Grace Banker, one of the stand­out fig­ures among the Hel­lo Girls, led her team to France after under­go­ing rig­or­ous train­ing. The women had to pay for their own uni­forms, which cost approx­i­mate­ly $300, a sig­nif­i­cant expense for most of them at the time. Despite the fact that they adhered to all mil­i­tary reg­u­la­tions and worked in the same con­di­tions as sol­diers, the Hel­lo Girls were not grant­ed full mil­i­tary sta­tus. Instead, they were clas­si­fied as con­tract employ­ees, a deci­sion that exclud­ed them from the mil­i­tary ben­e­fits that oth­er sol­diers enjoyed. In addi­tion to their com­mu­ni­ca­tion duties, these oper­a­tors had to face the dan­gers of being in a war zone, where their work could mean the dif­fer­ence between life and death for sol­diers on the front lines. They were also respon­si­ble for facil­i­tat­ing cru­cial con­nec­tions between mil­i­tary units, ensur­ing that vital infor­ma­tion and orders were con­veyed despite the ongo­ing con­flict. Their role in main­tain­ing lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion was cen­tral to the suc­cess of mil­i­tary oper­a­tions, and with­out them, many mis­sions would have been jeop­ar­dized.

    The chap­ter also dis­cuss­es the alter­na­tive meth­ods used to com­mu­ni­cate across the bat­tle­field, includ­ing car­ri­er pigeons. Though ini­tial­ly met with skep­ti­cism, the pigeon pro­gram proved to be invalu­able dur­ing the war. Thou­sands of pigeons were trained to car­ry mes­sages between mil­i­tary units, and one pigeon in par­tic­u­lar, Cher Ami, became famous for deliv­er­ing an impor­tant mes­sage while under ene­my fire. Cher Ami’s brav­ery in sav­ing U.S. troops by deliv­er­ing a vital mes­sage sym­bol­ized the per­se­ver­ance and courage that both the Hel­lo Girls and their feath­ered com­pan­ions exhib­it­ed dur­ing the war. Despite the dan­gers, both the women and the pigeons played vital roles in ensur­ing that crit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions reached the troops. It is a tes­ta­ment to the cre­ative and resource­ful meth­ods used to over­come the logis­ti­cal chal­lenges of war, espe­cial­ly when tra­di­tion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems were dis­rupt­ed by ene­my forces.

    Despite their tremen­dous sac­ri­fices, the Hel­lo Girls received lit­tle recog­ni­tion for many years. It wasn’t until 1977, when Con­gress grant­ed them offi­cial mil­i­tary sta­tus, that their con­tri­bu­tions were final­ly acknowl­edged. Their recog­ni­tion was a long-over­due acknowl­edg­ment of the vital role that women played in the war effort, and it was a moment of his­tor­i­cal jus­tice. Fur­ther­more, the advo­ca­cy and activism sur­round­ing the Hel­lo Girls helped pro­pel the larg­er suf­frage move­ment for­ward. Their strug­gle and con­tri­bu­tions were part of the broad­er move­ment that led to the rat­i­fi­ca­tion of the Nine­teenth Amend­ment, which final­ly grant­ed women the right to vote. The sto­ry of the Hel­lo Girls is not just a tale of wartime brav­ery, but also a reminder of how women’s rights were earned through years of strug­gle, sac­ri­fice, and resilience. Their achieve­ments helped to shape a more inclu­sive and equal soci­ety, and their lega­cy con­tin­ues to inspire the ongo­ing fight for gen­der equal­i­ty.

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