Telegraphist

A telegraphist (British English), telegrapher (American English), or telegraph operator is an operator who uses a telegraph key to send and receive the Morse code in order to communicate by land lines or radio.

Telegraphist was one of the very first "high technology" professions of the modern era. Many young men and young women left their farms and fishing communities in the late 19th century to take high paying jobs as professional telegraph operators. In those early days telegraphers were in such demand that operators could move from place to place and job to job to achieve ever higher salaries, thereby freeing them from subsistence lives on family farms.