Woman of the Century/Ella Maynard Kelley

KELLEY, Miss Ella Maynard, telegraph operator, born in Fremont, O., 13th December, 1859. She received a good education in the public schools of that town, and learned telegraphy in Lindsey, O. She has won a unique rank as the foremost woman in active telegraphy in the United States. The managers of the Western Union, who are familiar with her service and remarkable skill, say that she has gained the highest perfection in the art of any woman who ever was engaged in the business, and that she is perhaps without a superior, even among the men who have devoted their lives to that business. She began telegraphy at the age of fourteen years. When a girl at that age, she had charge of a night office in Oak Harbor, on the Lake Shore Railroad, and worked all night alone. After working four years at railroad telegraphing, in which she was responsible for the running of trains, she was engaged in commercial telegraphing in Atlantic City, N. J., in Detroit, Mich., in Washington, D. C., and in the Western Union office in Columbus, Ohio. In that city she was engaged in the most ELLA MAYNARD KELLEY. difficult work, such as sending the heavy reports of conventions and legislative sessions and the important political contests connected with them. For the past three years she has been in charge of the first wire of the Associated Press circuit. The most expert operators all over the country are employed on that circuit, and she commands a salary equal to that of any of the others for especially difficult work. She is the only woman employed on that wire. She is also the first woman who used the typewriter in the telegraphic service.