Today is an ordinary day’s work, I am calling the historian Bárbara Oliva (Baby) to consult her about a topic for my chronicle, I dial 8 digits and when she picks up her phone we are in contact…: Hello, good day, I need your help with..!
It is so ordinary and common to dial a telephone number that we very seldom remember its origins, the Spanish series that the Cubavisión channel broadcasts on Saturdays; Cable Girls, takes us back to the development of this service.
July 23rd, 2023 will mark the 100th anniversary of the implementation of automatic telephony in Camagüey, but since 1909 it has being used in Havana, by the Cuban Telephone Company.
What is automatic telephony?
One of the advances that benefited the field of communication technologies during the twenties of last century was the incorporation of the so-called automatic telephony, that is, the implementation of a service capable of mechanically putting people in contact with each other two subscribers from anywhere in the country.
With this, the telephone operators of the plants by cables and manually, were giving way to a smart board, which allowed conversation by dialing a number and then by keys.
Paired advances
With the development of communications, the telegraph arises. Although its services were growing, in the beginning, it was only coupled with the railway, in each train station there was a team and women telephone operators who operated it, with the purpose of authorizing tracks for the train passage, until certain sections of railway lines and they planned the crossings to avoid accidents, they also passed other information.
Sad story
Along with the telegraph and the railroad, we can remember Rosa Torres Acosta, and the sisters Zoila and Clotilde Ponce de León, the three telephone operators from the Santa Cruz del Sur station, who lost their lives trying to communicate with the Camagüey station, requesting an aid train for the people, faced with the threat of the cyclone of 32.
The train arrived the next day, when a large part of the population was lying under the waters of the sea, carried away by the fury of the winds.
While waiting for the message, even though the telegraphic communication had already been cut off and the water covered a large part of the office, they waited for the answer that authorized the train without giving up on their people.
The water began to rise and they could no longer get out, they drowned. For their countrymen they are heroines, who preferred to lose their lives rather than abandon their job.
News
We have seen the role of automatic telephony in our journal, its usefulness in providing information that saves lives, unites us with the people we love, and allows our work to flow with ease. Thanks to the historian Baby for offering me part of this information, to ensure that the message of my chronicle arrives to the right destination.
98 years after his arrival in Camagüey, this July 23rd, we appreciate the progress and development in communications and we hope that it continues to improve.
Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García
