Thank you for calling.
Your call is important to us.
Please hold.
Dial 0 for the operator.
These familiar expressions began 150 years ago when Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call in Boston. It didn’t take long for luxury hotels to adopt the technology, and eventually the phone became a commonplace amenity used to request room service, wakeup calls, and extra towels.
But behind the hotel’s phone lines were the women running the switchboard... and keeping the secrets of their celebrity guests.
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