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- MAKING
WAVES:
- Australia’s
women pioneers of
telecommunications
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- The
first telegraph service in the Australian colonies was opened
in 1854 but it was not until the following decade that women were
first employed as telegraphists by NSW Postmaster-General John
Burns. By the 1870's there were many women in country areas who
doubled as postmistress and telegraph operator.
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- The
employment of women in this field and later in telephone exchanges
was considered unwise at first because women were considered not
sufficiently mechanically-minded. However, Australia’s first
commercial telephone exchange in Melbourne employed 9 girls in
1880, although NSW’s first female telephonist, Jane M’Ilwain
was appointed at Gladstone in 1882 by accident - only young boys
were employed elsewhere - the first women employees being officially
introduced in 1896. WA's first “Lady telephonist” Connie
Letch was appointed in 1887 while Queensland women were only permitted
to enter the telephone switchboard attendants’ examination
from 1899.
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- Florence
Vi McKenzie or “Mrs Mac”, Australia’s first woman
electrical engineer, licensed woman amateur radio operator and
the first woman member of the Wireless Institute of Australia.
She opened a school in Sydney in 1939 to train girls in Morse
code and radio which became the Women’s Emergency Signalling
Corps (WESC) when war was declared. In response to the shortage
of telegraphists, 14 of her WESC girls were accepted by the Navy
on Anzac Day 1941 forming the Women's Royal Australian Navy Service
(WRANS).
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- Radio
broadcasting officially began in Australia in
1923 while the Australian Broadcasting
Commission (ABC) commenced operations in 1932.
However, it was not until 1940 that the ABC
appointed their first female announcer, Margaret
Doyle at their Sydney studios, followed a year
later by Dorothy Crawford in
Melbourne.
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- The
first broadcast from an Aboriginal woman on state radio was a
talk - albeit carefully scripted - by Gambanyi/Pearl Gibbs on
Radio 2WL in Wollongong in 1941. An ardent campaigner for Aboriginal
rights. Later in 1955, she became the first woman to be appointed
to the Aboriginal Protection Board.
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- Women
newsreaders were not seen on prime time, major network television
until the late 1970's such as ABC’s Margaret Throsby and
Channel 7’s Katrina Lee.
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- Australia's
first women telegraphists and
telephonists...
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 - Telstra
Museum, Adelaide
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- ISABELLA
CLIFF
- Australia’s
first telephonist was employed at the
country’s first commercial telephone
exchange in Collins Street, Melbourne in
1880.
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- Australia's
first women radio
operators...
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 - Courtesy
of Mrs Moira Milgate
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- F.
Vi McKENZIE (1891-1982)
- The
first Australian woman to graduate in electrical
engineering in 1923, she was also the first
woman to be granted an amateur radio
operator’s license and the first female
member of the Wireless Institute.
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 - Courtesy
of Miss KWV Smith
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- DOROTHY
SMITH (1909-1994)
- The
first woman in Australia to graduate as a radio
operator from the Amalgamated Wireless of
Australasia training school in Melbourne, she
was appointed a marine radio officer in
1951.
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- First
women in Australian radio and TV
broadcasting...
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 - Australian
Broadcasting
Corporation
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- MARGARET
DOYLE
- Australia’s
first female radio announcer was appointed by
the ABC Radio at their Sydney studios in
November 1940.
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 - Australian
Broadcasting
Corporation
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- MARGARET
THROSBY
- In
1975 she became the first woman to read a full-length main evening
ABC news bulletin on radio since World War II and 3 years later
was the first woman to read the 7pm ABC-TV news.
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 - Courtesy
of Cherie Romaro, Australian Radio
Network
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- CHERIE
ROMARO (b1950)
- Australia’s
first female music director for Radio 2SM,
Sydney and Program Director for Triple M, Sydney
before becoming Australia’s first female
Radio Network General Manager with the
Australian Radio Network in 1992.
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 - Courtesy
of Freda Glynn
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- FREDA
GLYNN (b1939)
- A
co-founder of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association
Group of Companies (CAAMA) in 1980 which includes Imparja, the
first Aboriginal commercial television station commenced broadcasting
1988 in Alice Springs. She also established the first licensed
Aboriginal radio station, Radio 8KIN FM, broadcasting in regional
languages.
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