The restoration plan after the Great Kanto Earthquake was an opportunity for converting manual exchanges to automatic exchanges. Until then, users had to press an electric bell button on the telephone first, then pick up the receiver, call the telephone exchange and say the number of the calling partner; then the partner was called by the operator. In those days, all this was performed by manual exchange of operators who were mostly women. Especially in hot summer and at the busy end of the year, this work must have been terrible. As the telephone became more widespread, the switchboard became higher, and those girls who were not tall enough to reach the highest step, used high-heeled lacquered wooden clogs (called pokkuri).

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