Elizabeth Cogley
Elizabeth Cogley, n.d. Marley Creek Archives.
Elizabeth Cogley was born in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, in 1833. She grew up immersed in a world of reading and learning. Her parents, Joseph and Sarah Cogley, owned a book and stationary store. Joseph also distributed newspapers. From an early age, Elizabeth took an interest in current events and the world around her. When breaking news of the Mexican-American War was read aloud from the town post office steps, Elizabeth was always among the crowd, listening and learning.
Elizabeth’s parents made sure she had a strong education. She first attended a “dame school,” a small school run by a woman out of her home. When Elizabeth outgrew the dame school, she attended the local Lewistown Academy.
Elizabeth grew up during an exciting period of U.S. history. The introduction of the steam engine in 1829 kicked off a rapid period of innovation known as the Industrial Revolution. During Elizabeth’s lifetime, the Industrial Revolution transformed all aspects of American life. The rise of factories meant people had new options for employment. Mass manufacturing made goods cheaper than ever before. Cities grew rapidly. The invention of the train made it easier for people to travel all over the country. Every year seemed to bring a new wonder.
These changes were especially exciting for women. Traditionally, women were expected to dedicate themselves to caring for their homes and families. Prior to the Industrial Revolution there were very few opportunities for women to earn wages. But the technological advancements of the era opened up some new opportunities. Business owners found that women had specific skills that made them useful workers. Most women were not able to break free of the traditional gender roles expected of them, but even the existence of the possibility was something new.
The invention that would change Elizabeth’s life made its debut in 1844, when Elizabeth was 12 years old. That year, Samuel Morse sent the first telegraph from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore. The telegraph worked by sending electric pulses over wire. Morse invented a code of pulses made up of combinations of long and short beeps that stood for each letter. This code was named Morse code in his honor. A telegraph operator could tap out their message in Morse code into a receiver that converted the taps into electric pulses. The electric pulses would travel by wire to the next receiver, where they would cause a machine to make long and short marks on a piece of paper. The operator on that end would then decode the marks to read the message.
The telegraph revolutionized communication. Messages that once took days to travel by horseback could now be delivered in minutes. Things became even faster when operators learned to understand messages “by ear.” Instead of waiting for the machine to make its marks, they could just listen to the taps and decode as the message came in.
It’s unclear how Elizabeth ended up with her first job with the Atlantic & Ohio (A&O) telegraph office in Lewistown. It might be that she took to hanging around the building waiting for news like she used to do at the post office. Regardless, Elizabeth was hired to deliver telegram messages around town as they came in. Her intelligence and hard work impressed her manager. He taught her Morse code and how to use the machinery to send and receive messages. When her manager moved on to a better job in 1855, Elizabeth was promoted to the position of operator for her town.
There were not many companies that hired women in 1855, but Atlantic & Ohio telegraph company made an exception because they were close to bankruptcy. Running the telegraph lines for their business cost a great deal of money, but people did not yet send enough telegrams for them to make the money back. A&O began to hire women operators in 1850 because they could pay them less then men. Initially, A&O ran lines directly into the women’s homes, so they could not be accused of empowering women to seek employment beyond the sheltering confines of their home and family. But enough women were already employed in factory work that public perceptions about working women were rapidly changing. By the time Elizabeth became an operator, she was able to work in the telegraph office without incident.
Elizabeth was part of the network responsible for coordinating the safe passage of trains all over the Eastern seaboard.
In 1856, A&O was still struggling financially when a new opportunity rolled into town. The construction of Lewistown’s first railroad station connected the town to the fastest transportation network available. But railroad companies had a logistical issue. In most places, it did not make financial sense to build more than one track. As long as only one train ran at a time, this was not a problem. But if there were two trains headed in opposite directions, there was the possibility of the trains running into each other. In 1851, someone proposed running telegraph lines between stations so that operators could stay in constant contact and report the movement of trains along the tracks. When the Pennsylvania Railroad moved into Lewistown, they bought the A&O office and moved Elizabeth into the railroad station. From there, she continued to send and receive personal telegraphs and news, but she was also part of the network responsible for coordinating the safe passage of trains all over the Eastern Seaboard. Elizabeth held her job as a Pennsylvania Railroad telegraph operator for the next 44 years.
Elizabeth never married, perhaps because married women were forced to give up their jobs, and she liked her work too much to give it up. On top of her duties as an operator, Elizabeth tutored other women interested in becoming telegraph operators. Her efforts contributed to Pennsylvania becoming the state with the highest number of female telegraph operators in the country.
The next major event in Elizabeth’s life was the outbreak of the Civil War. On April 16, 1861, Elizabeth was the operator who received President Lincoln’s first telegraph asking men to join the Union Army. The next day she received a message from the governor of Pennsylvania asking the commander of the Lewiston militia to rally his men and report to Harrisburg. She delivered the message and then sent the commander’s response that they would report at once. This exchange is remembered as the first military telegraph exchange of the Civil War.
In 1862, the Pennsylvania Railroad company transferred Elizabeth to Harrisburg, a transportation hub that needed her expertise because of the increased traffic caused by the war. In Harrisburg, Elizabeth was part of a nationwide network of women telegraph operators who ensured the safe and efficient of supplies and troops needed for the war effort.
Elizabeth stayed in Harrisburg when the war ended. When she retired in 1900, she held the title of Chief Message Officer, and she was awarded a pension to support her for the rest of her life. Elizabeth returned to Lewistown after her retirement, where she dedicated herself to supporting church and community groups. She passed away in 1922 at the age of 88.
Vocabulary
- Civil War: U.S. war from 1861 to 1865 in which the Northern and Southern states fought over the question of whether the practice of slavery should continue in the U.S.
- Industrial Revolution: The era of American history marked by the rise of factories and mechanical inventions that transformed daily life.
- Mexican-American War: 1846—1848 war between U.S. and Mexico over control of lands along their shared border.
- militia: A volunteer military force that supports the Army in emergencies.
- Morse code: A code in which each letter of the alphabet is represented by a combination of long and short dashes.
- operator: A person who sends and receives telegraphic messages.
- pension: A regular payment that supports a person during their retirement.
- telegraph: A system for transmitting messages long distances by sending electrical pulses over a wire. Also the name of messages received using the telegraph system.
- Union Army: The army that fought for the states that remained a part of the United States during the Civil War.
Discussion Questions
- What does Elizabeth Cogley’s story reveal about the shifts that took place in the Industrial Revolution?
- Why did the A&O telegraph company hire women operators? What does this tell us about society’s attitude toward women in the workforce?
- Why did Elizabeth Cogley teach other women how to be telegraph operators? What does this reveal about her character?
Suggested Activities
- APUSH Connection: 4.5 Market Revolution: Industrialization
- Use this life story during Industrial Revolution lessons to demonstrate how women contributed to the adoption of new technologies.
- Elizabeth Cogley was a highly skilled worker. To give students a taste of how challenging her work was, have them compose messages in Morse code, and then team up with a partner to try to tap them out for each other. Or have a competition to see which students can translate a message you write and tap out the fastest.
- For other examples of work opportunities for women during the Industrial Revolution, see Rules for Mill Workers, Mill Girls, The Factory Floor, and In Their Own Words.
- To help students understand why it was unusual for Elizabeth Cogley to remain a career woman for life, see “The Two Sexes.”
- For more women and STEM in the Industrial Revolution, see The First Lady of American Astronomy and Climate Warning.
Themes
WORK, LABOR, AND ECONOMY; SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND MEDICINE
