Graynella Packer

Graynella Packer was an American author and attorney, best known for being the first female radiotelegraph (wireless) operator to make overnight voyages on an ocean-going vessel, when she served aboard the steamship Mohawk along the Atlantic seaboard from November 1910 to April 1911. She later authored a training manual for Morse code telegraphy, and became a lawyer qualified to practice in four states and before the US Supreme Court.

Early life

Graynella Packer (also known as "A. Graynella Packer") was born around 1888 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In her teens, her family moved to Jacksonville, Florida. While attending Sutherland College there, she took technical courses and learned Morse code as a way to communicate with classmates.

Career

Early career

After Packer finished college studies, she decided to go into landline telegraphy, in part due to her poor eyesight, because, in her words, "handling a key is no strain on the sight". She was employed for two years as the manager of the Sanford, Florida office of the Postal Telegraph Company. She also took regular trips on the Clyde Line steamship Comanche to New York City for vocal lessons. During these trips she became interested in the ship's radiotelegraph equipment, then commonly known as "wireless", and experimented with sending test transmissions. This interest was increased by the recent celebrated actions of operator Jack Binns aboard the Republic, whom she came to see as a model for how she would respond in a crisis.

The ship's sole operator, Packer reported that "My berth is right in the wireless room with the little receivers near my bedside, and awake nearly once every hour to listen for messages." Her send off was heavily covered, and after reaching Charleston she noted that "When the Mohawk was ready to leave New York, there must have been twenty-five or thirty reporters there, and there were ten camera men, all requesting me to pose for my picture." Many of the early press accounts stated that Packer was 22 years old when she began to work on the Mohawk, however she later was quoted as saying "I don't know how the reporters ever came to say I was 22 years of age and I don't think I will tell you exactly how old I am."

During her first voyage as a radio operator, Packer reported that "The passengers and employes all treated me with a world of courtesy, and I am wholly delighted".

Later life

At the time Packer began working on the Mohawk, she was quoted as saying "I don't always intend to be a wireless operator, but I am just using wireless to help me in my career in life. For I have an ambition to become a concert and church singer, and I have become an operator to help me in my life work." In 1914 she graduated from a year-long Public School Music program at Albany college in Oregon, and the next summer enrolled at the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1918 she published an instruction manual titled "Rhythmic Telegraphy".

In May 1921 she received a Bachelor of Laws degree from Cumberland University. After relocating to Tulsa, she began practicing in Oklahoma that year, and in 1933 was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme court. By 1935 she was qualified to practice law in four states, had been elected the first woman secretary of the Bar Association of Oklahoma, and made multiple international trips, including a world tour in 1934.

She was reported to be holding teaching assignments in Pokomoke, Maryland in 1953, and Nogales, Arizona in 1954.

Legacy

One of the most contentious topics in the United States in the early 1910s was women's suffrage, promoting voting rights for women. Packer was reported to be opposed to the idea, and was quoted as saying "Am I a suffragette? Well, not exactly. To be very frank I have been too busy with my work to pay attention to such things as suffrage."

Packer's activities as a pioneering shipboard radio operator were widely reported in the newspapers and magazines of the time, with one early article stating that "As a result of the daily service of the Clyde line and the need of additional operators it is expected that several other women will be employed in the near future."