Retrato do autor
1 Work 2 Membros 1 Review

Obras por Mary Ann Carson

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Data de nascimento
20th century
Sexo
female
Nacionalidade
USA

Membros

Críticas

Down the Tracks of Time is described as an as-told-to memoir of an Iowa farm girl who was hired as a telegraph operator by the Union Pacific Railroad during World War II.

The quality of as-told-to memoir’s can be either very good or very poor. This memoir falls in the latter category. The first 112 pages of the 234 page book provide some details about family life during the depression and graduation from high school. The remaining pages describe hiring on as a Union Pacific Railroad employee, the first time away from home, Union Pacific telegrapher/station agent training in Omaha, station assignments and events occurring at each station. Unfortunately the writing is sketchy, repetitive, and dull.

There are at least 6 reminders that the work is 7 days a week, 3 descriptions of the differences between message hoops and forks, several near identical descriptions of the methods for setting time both with a personal timepiece as well as the station clock and more.

There are also factual mistakes. The “NY” in the word "nylon" does not stand for New York, the original 1942 reviews for Casablanca did not say it would be one of the greatest movies ever made, the term “Holy mackerel” as part of the American language dates from 1803 and not from its use in a 1930's radio show, etc.

On occasion the writer does describe work incidents that hold the readers interest – the hand signals for indicating hot boxes and their location in the train to the conductor in the caboose, the first time hooping up orders, the near miss with overhanging freight, the problems with handling shipments of frozen fish at the depot, and the nighttime hooping up of orders during a blizzard – but these are few in number.

I had high hopes for this book and I wish I had something better to report. If you are interested in reading about the world of female railroad telegraphers I would recommend Ma Kiley: the life of a railroad telegrapher - Jepsen or Woman operator on the Milwaukee Railroad during World War II - Byington.
… (mais)
½
 
Assinalado
alco261 | Dec 17, 2017 |

Estatísticas

Obras
1
Membros
2
Popularidade
#2,183,609
Avaliação
½ 0.5
Críticas
1
ISBN
1