Hello Girls
[2][page needed] This corps was formed in 1917 from a call by General John J. Pershing to improve the worsening state of communications on the Western front.
The term was coined for female telephone switchboard operators in the US, who greeted callers with "hello" when they signaled to place a call.
In September 1917, as male recruits were being shipped to France, the commanders of various Army camps in the continental United States began asking for permission to build facilities to house women telephone operators to maintain their communications.
[5]: 65–67 The communication difficulties in France, due to a shortage of switchboard operators and the language differences, frustrated Pershing.
[9] By July 1918, the Army telephone service in France tripled the number of calls per day due to the addition of the women operators.
A YWCA secretary accompanied the team and arranged billeting for the women in an old shed that had been used to house French troops during the Battle of Verdun.
As described by one of the operators:[5]: 229–231 Every order for an infantry advance, a barrage preparatory to the taking of a new objective, and, in fact, for every troop movement, came over the 'fighting lines', as we called them.Two days after the Armistice, the chief signal officer for the First Army stated in his official report "a large part of the success of the communications of this Army is due to ... a competent staff of women operators."
[5]: 75–81 In June 1918, the House of Representatives passed a bill authorizing war risk insurance for "women serving by official designation with the Army in the American overseas forces as telephone and telegraph operators", however that provision was deleted by the Senate.
Multiple efforts were made to obtain Congressional recognition of the Signal Corps telephone operators in the decades after the war, with at least 24 bills being introduced between 1927 and 1977.
Despite opposition by the Army, the Veterans Administration, and even the American Legion, the campaign by Anderson and others finally resulted in a bill passing and being signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in November 1977.
The book is based on the diaries of several of the women who served as operators and outlines WWI battles and offensives in which the Hello Girls played key roles.
[16][17] In 2021, the children's book Grace Banker and the Hello Girls Answer the Call, written by Claudiel Friddell and illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley, was published.
[18] On March 4, 2023, the Mountain Home Public Library hosted a program on Idaho history featuring, in its Women's History Month segment, the biography of WWI Signal Corps telephone operator Anne Campbell, the only Hello Girl from Idaho to serve at the Western front.
After Campbell's death on April 8, 1988, a brass military marker was installed on her burial site in Morris Hill Cemetery, Boise.
[citation needed] In December 2024, as part of the Service member Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 2025, the group was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
