I 

118TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. R. 1572 

To award a Congressional Gold Medal to the female telephone operators 

of the Army Signal Corps, known as the ‘‘Hello Girls’’. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MARCH 14, 2023 

Mr. CLEAVER (for himself, Mr. GRAVES of Missouri, Ms. DAVIDS of Kansas, 

and Ms. MACE) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 

Committee on Financial Services, and in addition to the Committee on 

House Administration, for a period to be subsequently determined by the 

Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within 

the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 

A BILL 

To award a Congressional Gold Medal to the female telephone operators of the Army Signal Corps, known as 

the ‘‘Hello Girls’’. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Hello Girls Congres5 sional Gold Medal Act of 2023’’. 

6 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

7 Congress finds the following: 


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1 (1) On April 6, 1917, the United States de2 clared war against Germany. As a historically neu3 tral nation, the United States was unprepared to 

4 fight a technologically modern conflict overseas. The 

5 United States called upon American Telephone and 

6 Telegraph (referred to in this section as ‘‘AT&T’’) 

7 to provide equipment and trained personnel for the 

8 Army Signal Corps in France. AT&T executives in 

9 Army uniform served at home under the provisions 

10 of the Act entitled ‘‘An Act for making further and 

11 more effectual provision for the national defense, 

12 and for other purposes.’’, approved June 3, 1916 

13 (referred to in this section as the ‘‘National Defense 

14 Act of 1916’’), which allowed for the induction of in15 dividuals with specialized skills into a reserve force. 

16 (2) When General John Pershing sailed for Eu17 rope in May of 1917, as head of the American Expe18 ditionary Forces (referred to in this section as the 

19 ‘‘AEF’’), he took telephone operating equipment 

20 with him in recognition of the inadequacy of Euro21 pean circuitry and with the understanding that tele22 phones would play a key role in battlefield commu23 nications for the first time in the history of war. 

24 (3) From May to November of 1917, the AEF 

25 struggled to develop the telephone service necessary 


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1 for the Army to function under battlefield condi2 tions. Monolingual infantrymen from the United 

3 States were unable to connect calls rapidly or com4 municate effectively with their French counterparts 

5 to put calls through over toll lines that linked one 

6 region of the country with another. The Army found 

7 that the average male operator required 60 seconds 

8 to make a connection. That rate was unacceptably 

9 slow, especially for operational calls between com10 mand outposts and the front lines. 

11 (4) During this time, in the United States, tele12 phone operating was largely sex-segregated. Hired 

13 for their speed in connecting calls, women filled 85 

14 percent of the telephone operating positions in the 

15 United States. It took the average female operator 

16 10 seconds to make a connection. 

17 (5) On November 8, 1917, General Pershing 

18 cabled the War Department and wrote, ‘‘On account 

19 of the great difficulty of obtaining properly qualified 

20 men, request organization and dispatch to France a 

21 force of women telephone operators all speaking 

22 French and English equally well.’’. To begin, Gen23 eral Pershing requested 100 women under the com24 mand of a commissioned captain, writing that ‘‘All 


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1 should have allowances of Army nurses and should 

2 be uniformed.’’. 

3 (6) The War Department sent press releases to 

4 newspapers across the United States to recruit 

5 women willing to serve for the duration of the war 

6 and face the hazards of submarine warfare and aer7 ial bombardment. These articles emphasized that pa8 triotic women would be ‘‘full-fledged soldier[s] under 

9 the articles of war’’ and would ‘‘do as much to help 

10 win the war as the men in khaki who go ‘over the 

11 top.’ ’’. All women selected would take the Army 

12 oath. 

13 (7) More than 7,600 women volunteered for the 

14 100 positions described in paragraph (5) and the 

15 first recruits took the Army oath on January 15, 

16 1918. 

17 (8) Like nurses and doctors at the time, female 

18 Signal Corps members had relative rather than tra19 ditional ranks and were ranked as Operator, Super20 visor, or Chief Operator. When promoted, the 

21 women were required to swear the Army oath again. 

22 (9) Telephone operators were the first women 

23 to serve as soldiers in non-medical classifications 

24 and the job of the operators was to help win the 


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1 war, not to mitigate the harms of the war. In pop2 ular parlance, they were known as the ‘‘Hello Girls’’. 

3 (10) Signal Corps Operators wore Army uni4 forms and Army insignia always, as well as stand5 ard-issue identity disks in case of death, and were 

6 subject to court martial for infractions of the mili7 tary code. 

8 (11) Unbeknownst to the women operators and 

9 their immediate officers, the legal counsel of the 

10 Army ruled internally on March 20, 1918, that the 

11 women were not actually soldiers but contract em12 ployees, even though the women had not seen or 

13 signed any contracts. Military code allowed only for 

14 the induction of men and the code remained un15 changed despite the orders of General Pershing. 

16 Nevertheless, legal counsel also recognized that the 

17 National Defense Act of 1916, which allowed for the 

18 induction of members of the telephone industry of 

19 the United States into the Armed Forces, imposed 

20 no gender restrictions. 

21 (12) Four days later, on March 24, 1918, the 

22 first contingent of operators began their official du23 ties in France. The operators arrived before most in24 fantrymen of the Armed Forces in order to facilitate 


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1 logistics and deployment and spent their first night 

2 in Paris under German bombardment. 

3 (13) After the arrival of the operators, tele4 phone service in France improved immediately, as 

5 calls tripled from 13,000 to 36,000 per day. 

6 (14) The Army quickly recruited, trained, and 

7 deployed 5 additional contingents of female Signal 

8 Corps operators. With these personnel, calls in9 creased to 150,000 per day. 

10 (15) In addition to standard telephone oper11 ating, bilingual Signal Corps members provided si12 multaneous translation between officers from France 

13 and officers from the United States, who were com14 municating by telephone. 

15 (16) The AEF fought their first major battles 

16 in the last 2 months of the war. By that point, the 

17 Signal Corps considered the contributions of women 

18 to be so essential that, in telephone exchanges clos19 est to the front line, the Army exclusively used 

20 women, in rotating 12-hour shifts. In the rear, the 

21 Army established rotating 8-hour shifts and gave 

22 male soldiers the overnight shift when telephone 

23 traffic was slower. 

24 (17) Seven bilingual operators— 


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1 (A) served at the Battles of St. Mihiel and 

2 Meuse-Argonne under the immediate command 

3 of General Pershing; 

4 (B) staffed the Operations Boards through 

5 which orders to advance, fire, and retreat were 

6 delivered to soldiers in the trenches, to artillery 

7 units on alert, and to pilots awaiting orders at 

8 French airfields; and 

9 (C) were awarded a ‘‘Defensive Sector 

10 Clasp’’ for the Meuse-Argonne operation. 

11 (18) The Chief Operator supervising the Hello 

12 Girls, Grace Banker of Passaic, New Jersey, was 

13 awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. Out of 

14 16,000 eligible Signal Corps officers, Banker was 

15 one of only 18 individuals so honored. 

16 (19) Thirty additional operators received special 

17 commendations, many signed by General Pershing 

18 himself, for ‘‘exceptionally meritorious and con19 spicuous services’’ in ‘‘Advance Sections’’ of the con20 flict. 

21 (20) The war ended on November 11, 1918. As 

22 of that date, 223 female operators served in France 

23 and had connected 26,000,000 calls for the AEF. 

24 (21) The Chief Signal Officer of the Army Sig25 nal Corps wrote in his official report 2 days after 


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1 the date on which the war ended that ‘‘a large part 

2 of the success of the communications of this Army 

3 is due to . . . a competent staff of women opera4 tors.’’. 

5 (22) After the war ended, some women were or6 dered to Coblenz in Germany for the occupation of 

7 that country and to Paris for the Paris Peace Trea8 ty of 1919 to continue telephone operations, some9 times in direct support of President Woodrow Wil10 son. 

11 (23) Two operators, Corah Bartlett and Inez 

12 Crittenden, died in France in the service of the 

13 United States and were buried there in military 

14 cemeteries with military ceremonies. Those operators 

15 died of the same influenza pandemic that killed more 

16 soldiers of the Armed Forces than combat oper17 ations. 

18 (24) Women of the Army Signal Corps were in19 eligible for discharge until formal release. Because of 

20 their role in logistics, those women were among the 

21 last soldiers to come home to the United States. The 

22 last Signal Corps operators returned from France in 

23 January of 1920. 

24 (25) Upon arrival in the United States, the 

25 Army informed female veterans that they had perVerDate Sep 11 2014 02:10 Mar 25, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H1572.IH H1572

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1 formed as civilians, not soldiers, even though opera2 tors had served in Army uniform in a theater of war 

3 surrounded by men who were similarly engaged. 

4 (26) Despite the objections of General George 

5 Squier, the top-ranking officer in the Signal Corps, 

6 the Army denied Signal Corps women the veterans’ 

7 benefits granted to male soldiers and female nurses, 

8 such as— 

9 (A) hospitalization for disabilities incurred 

10 in the line of duty; 

11 (B) cash bonuses; 

12 (C) soldiers’ pensions; 

13 (D) flags on their coffins; and 

14 (E) the Victory Medals promised them in 

15 France. 

16 (27) For the next 60 years, female veterans, led 

17 by Merle Egan from Montana, petitioned Congress 

18 more than 50 times for their recognition. In 1977, 

19 under the sponsorship of Senator Barry Goldwater, 

20 Congress passed legislation to retroactively acknowl21 edge the military service of the Women’s Airforce 

22 Service Pilots (referred to in this section as 

23 ‘‘WASPs’’) of World War II and ‘‘the service of any 

24 person in any other similarly situated group the 

25 members of which rendered service to the Armed 


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1 Forces of the United States in a capacity considered 

2 civilian employment or contractual service at the 

3 time such service was rendered’’. 

4 (28) On November 23, 1977, President Jimmy 

5 Carter signed the legislation described in paragraph 

6 (27) into law as the GI Bill Improvement Act of 

7 1977 (Public Law 95–202; 91 Stat. 1433). 

8 (29) The Signal Corps telephone operators ap9 plied for, and were granted, status as veterans in 

10 1979. 

11 (30) Only 33 of the operators who had returned 

12 home after the war were still alive to receive their 

13 Victory Medals and official discharge papers, which 

14 were finally awarded in 1979. 

15 (31) One of the women, Olive Shaw from Mas16 sachusetts, returned to the United States after the 

17 war, where she worked on the professional staff of 

18 Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers. Shaw lived to 

19 receive her honorable discharge and was the first 

20 burial when the Massachusetts National Cemetery 

21 opened on October 11, 1980. Shaw’s uniform is on 

22 display at the National World War I Museum and 

23 Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri. 

24 (32) Upon receipt of her honorable discharge at 

25 a ceremony in her home in Marine City, Michigan, 


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1 ‘‘Hello Girl’’ Oleda Joure Christides raised the paper 

2 to her lips and kissed it. The only thing Christides 

3 ever wanted from the Federal Government was a 

4 flag on her coffin. 

5 (33) On July 1, 2009, President Barack Obama 

6 signed into law Public Law 111–40 (123 Stat. 

7 1958), which awarded the WASPs the Congressional 

8 Gold Medal for their service to the United States. 

9 (34) For their role as pioneers who paved the 

10 way for all women in uniform, and for service that 

11 was essential to victory in World War I, the ‘‘Hello 

12 Girls’’ merit similar recognition. 

13 SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL. 

14 (a) AWARD AUTHORIZED.—The Speaker of the 

15 House of Representatives and the President pro tempore 

16 of the Senate shall make appropriate arrangements for the 

17 award, on behalf of Congress, of a single gold medal of 

18 appropriate design in honor of the female telephone opera19 tors of the Army Signal Corps (commonly known as the 

20 ‘‘Hello Girls’’), in recognition of those operators’— 

21 (1) pioneering military service; 

22 (2) devotion to duty; and 

23 (3) 60-year struggle for— 

24 (A) recognition as soldiers; and 

25 (B) veterans’ benefits. 


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1 (b) DESIGN AND STRIKING.—For the purposes of the 

2 award described in subsection (a), the Secretary of the 

3 Treasury (referred to in this Act as the ‘‘Secretary’’) shall 

4 strike the gold medal with suitable emblems, devices, and 

5 inscriptions, to be determined by the Secretary. 

6 (c) SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.— 

7 (1) IN GENERAL.—After the award of the gold 

8 medal under subsection (a), the medal shall be given 

9 to the Smithsonian Institution, where the medal 

10 shall be available for display, as appropriate, and 

11 made available for research. 

12 (2) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of 

13 Congress that the Smithsonian Institution should 

14 make the gold medal received under paragraph (1) 

15 available elsewhere, particularly at— 

16 (A) appropriate locations associated with— 

17 (i) the Army Signal Corps; 

18 (ii) the Women in Military Service for 

19 America Memorial; 

20 (iii) the U.S. Army Women’s Museum; 

21 and 

22 (iv) the National World War I Mu23 seum and Memorial; and 

24 (B) any other location determined appro25 priate by the Smithsonian Institution. 


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1 SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS. 

2 Under such regulations as the Secretary may pre3 scribe, the Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in 

4 bronze of the gold medal struck under section 3 at a price 

5 sufficient to cover the costs of the medals, including labor, 

6 materials, dies, use of machinery, and overhead expenses. 

7 SEC. 5. NATIONAL MEDALS. 

8 (a) NATIONAL MEDALS.—Medals struck under this 

9 Act are national medals for purposes of chapter 51 of title 

10 31, United States Code. 

11 (b) NUMISMATIC ITEMS.—For purposes of section 

12 5134 of title 31, United States Code, all medals struck 

13 under this Act shall be considered to be numismatic items. 

14 SEC. 6. AUTHORITY TO USE FUND AMOUNTS; PROCEEDS OF 

15 SALE. 

16 (a) AUTHORITY TO USE FUND AMOUNTS.—There is 

17 authorized to be charged against the United States Mint 

18 Public Enterprise Fund such amounts as may be nec19 essary to pay for the costs of the medals struck under 

20 this Act. 

21 (b) PROCEEDS OF SALE.—Amounts received from the 

22 sale of duplicate bronze medals authorized under section 

23 4 shall be deposited into the United States Mint Public 

24 Enterprise Fund. 

Æ 


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