Answering the Call to Freedom: The Chronicle of Grace D. Banker

Grace D. Banker was a telephone operator who served during World War I as chief operator of mobile for the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. She led thirty-two female telephone operators known popularly as "Hello Girls". They were assigned to travel to France to operate telephone switchboards at the war front & they also operated the telephone switchboards at First Army headquarters at Ligny, about 5 miles to the south of Saint-Mihiel, and later during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.

In 1919, Banker was honored with the Distinguished Service Medal for her services with the First Army headquarters during the Saint-Mihiel, and later during the Meuse-Argonne, Offensives, with a commendation. Grace was the first and only woman operator in the Signal Corps to be awarded the Army's Distinguished Service Medal. After her return to civilian life, Banker & her team members were treated as citizen volunteers & initially not given recognition as members of the military. Banker died on December 17, 1960, in Scarsdale, New York.

To begin, it should not come as a shock that women served during World War I in roles other than nurses. There is evidence that women have taken part in wars this country has been involved in since the American Revolutionary War. While Grace and the other telephone operators sailed for France, the United States government was dealing with another war on the home front. Women's suffrage, which dealt with a woman's legal right to vote, had begun to pick up steam by the year 1900.

Through the hard work of various organizations and a decades-long movement, on August 26, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment's adoption was certified, prohibiting the United States and its states from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex, in effect recognizing the right of women to a vote. Despite this victory for women's rights, Grace and her team of operators would soon learn that they weren't viewed as soldiers by the government, they were viewed as hired civilian telephone operators.

Our goal is not only to share Banker's story but to stress that Grace D. Banker was not just a telephone operator for hire whose story was lost to time. She was a patriot, a wife, and a mother. She was a daughter and a sister. She was a woman who didn't like praise for her actions during World War I, Grace felt she simply did what any able-bodied American would do in a time of great doubt and chaos.

Grace Banker's story, hidden history that has remained long forgotten, is the story of an American citizen who answered the call of duty, only to later learn that certain members of Congress were not interested in uniting in the common interest of women's rights.

 

For the rest of Grace D. Banker's story, please check out the audio link provided for EPISODE FOUR of our new podcast, Hidden History:

 

LISTEN NOW: Answering the Call to Freedom: The Chronicle of Grace D. Banker

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Images and Newspaper Articles

 

Grace D. Banker in her college yearbook, 1915.

The 1st unit of telephone operators shortly after they

arrived in France in March 1918.

Grace D. Banker is sitting center of first row.

Phone Girls on Duty at Chief Signal Corps Office Headquarters at Souilly, Meuse, France, 15 November 1918.

Left to Right: Ester V. Fresnel, Yonkers, NY; Leonie C. Peyron, Los Angeles, CA; Marie Flood, Chicago, IL; Marie D. Belanger, Rochester, NY; Grace D. Banker, Passaic, NJ; Jennie R. Young, Seattle, WA;

Suzanne Prevot, NYC; Marie Lange, San Francisco, CA; Louise Beraud, Houston, TX; B. Hunt, San Francisco, CA; & Bertha Arlaud, Brooklyn, NY.

Photograph by Pvt. T. R. Shaw, Signal Corps.

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company honored

the U.S. Army Signal Corps telephone operators on the

front cover of their magazine, The Telephone Review, in May 1918.

Telephone operators were on call 24-7, staffing the communications headquarters for the Army Signal Corps. They were required to be fluent in French to receive & dispatch calls to the French army.

U.S. Army Signal Corps women telephone operators in the long distance toll office at La Belle Epine, outside of the gates of Paris,

France. Grace Banker is standing in the background on the left.

U.S. Army Signal Corps telephone operators line up

for inspection and a parade in their honor, reviewed by AEF commander General John J. Pershing, in Tours, France.

Signal Corps girls receiving recognition for their work, circa 1919.

Back row, first from left, is Grace D. Banker.

With their gas masks and helmets slung over their chairs, the women of the Signal Corps connected messages that dealt with classified information, like battle orders, artillery commands and emergency calls from the trenches.

The National WWI Museum and Memorial.

Distinguished Service Medal from World War One that

Grace D. Banker would have received in Coblenz, Germany.

New York Herald, Wednesday, May 28, 1919.

New York Tribune, Thursday, September 4, 1919.

Elmira, NY Star Gazette, Thursday, September 18, 1919.

The Scarsdale Inquirer, Friday, May 29, 1931.

The Scarsdale Inquirer, December 22, 1960.

An article about the death of Grace Banker Paddock.

Barnard Alumnae Magazine, Volume 50, No. 3 - Spring 1961.

Grace D. Banker died of cancer on December 17, 1960, in Scarsdale, New York. She is buried with her husband in Green-Wood Cemetery,

Brooklyn, New York. She was 68 years old at the time of her death.

Banker's, uniform, now in the collection of the

National WWI Museum and Memorial.

Personal items belonging to Grace D. Banker from WWI. Artifacts provided by Banker's granddaughter, Carolyn Timbie.

The bill passed by Congress and later signed into law on November 23, 1977 by President Jimmy Carter that finally acknowledged Banker and her team's work during WWI & officially recognized them as veterans.

Reading Material

With millions of men away from home, women filled manufacturing and agricultural positions on the home front. Others provided support on the front lines as nurses, doctors, ambulance drivers, translators and, in rare cases, on the battlefield.

Learn more about the participation of women during WWI:

A great article by 2nd Lt. Annie Beckman, released on March 11, 2022. Beckman is a Signal Officer from Ann Arbor, Mich., assigned to Charlie Company, 46th Aviation Support Battalion, 16th Combat Aviation Brigade at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.

Resources

Comments

Ellie Farber
a year ago

🇺🇸👏🏼

Jesse Cooper
a year ago

God Bless this patriot 🇺🇸 Thank you for sharing her story 🙏🏼

P. Beasley
a year ago

A truly inspiring story.

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