AT&T Celebrates the Hello Girls’ Congressional Gold Medal

You probably don’t think about what happens when you make a phone call. You just know that you press a few buttons, and thanks to a sophisticated network of computers, someone picks up on the other end.

But a century ago, most calls required a human operator to connect them. And some crucial calls – those that relayed information across the battlefields of World War I – required a specific set of human operators known as the Hello Girls: a group of AT&T trainees that played a critical role in supporting the American Expeditionary Forces.

This probably is not a group you’ve heard of before, which is why I was proud last night to join a Military Women’s Memorial event to celebrate these incredible women and Congress’ recent decision to award them the Congressional Gold Medal. And it’s why I’m proud this Women’s History Month to share it with you too.

Thanks to AT&T’s excellent archives team, we know it all started with recruiting and selecting the best of the best at six training locations across the United States. The preparations at these sites were not easy – 15 percent of the applicants failed to qualify as operators – but this process ensured the group would be prepared on day one.

This was evident when they made it to France. Some members of the Army Signal Corps took a full minute to connect calls, but the Hello Girls only needed 10 seconds. General John Pershing and Colonel Parker Hitt recognized this and frequently made sure the Hello Girls were on duty at the most important moments, like during the major Battle of Saint-Mihiel, when six operators rotated through 24-hour shifts.

Before they joined the war effort, American forces were only able to place 13,000 calls a day. But with the 223 Hello Girls at the controls, that number increased to 36,000 calls a day. And by the end of the war, more than 25 million local calls and 870,000 long-distance calls had been placed over the American system.

The Hello Girls wore a uniform, were given ranks, and in every way appeared to be soldiers. But after the war, the U.S. Army decided they had served as civilians. Unfortunately, it took more than 50 years for the Hello Girls to be deemed veterans and granted benefits; only 18 of them were still alive.

Thankfully, Congress has since acknowledged their significant contributions, and most recently, they were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal as part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2025.

As we salute the Hello Girls, we are proud to continue their legacy of connecting those who protect and serve our nation, through our communications support for the Department of Defense and the rest of the federal government.

And we have not strayed away from our history of training the technical workforce of the future. Our Catapult IT apprenticeship program helps match entry-level IT talent with the needs of federal agencies that keep America safe. Like the Hello Girls, they are prepared to support the mission as soon as they start.