New York Times, February 26, 1909, page 7:
BARNARD GIRLS TEST WIRELESS 'PHONES
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Demonstration of the System Gives Mrs. Blatch a Chance for Suffrage Arguments.
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HEARERS COULDN'T ANSWER
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Men and Women in the Physics Course See How the New Device is Operated.
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A lesson in wireless telephony was given to many Barnard College students yesterday afternoon by Mrs. Lee De Forest, wife of the inventor of the system. The girls are studying physics under Prof. Margaret B. Maltby and are interested in practical matters of this kind. There was much surprise, though, when the Barnard students arrived at the wireless telephone rooms, for more than half of them were men--Barnard co-eds they called themselves. These men were Columbia College students, who were also anxious to test the apparatus.
At the transmitter in the Terminal Building in Park Avenue were Mr. De Forest and Mrs. Stanton Blatch, mother of Mrs. De Forest and a phonograph, with which the wireless operators got "in tune" before they began work.
"You see," said L. I. Thomas, who was in charge of the receiving end of the apparatus in the Metropolitan Life Building, "you can't talk with any one unless you are in tune with them."
Just then Mrs. Blatch, at the transmitter end of the wireless telephone, began to talk. It really was not quite fair of Mrs. Blatch, because she had a strong desire to convert Prof. Maltby to woman suffrage. Putting herself at the transmitter end, with Miss Maltby at the receiver end, on the plea of giving her scientific instruction, she began:
"I stand for the achievements of the twentieth century. I believe in its scientific developments, in its political developments. I will not refuse to use the tools which progress places at my command. I will make use of the telegraph with or without wires, the telephone with or without wires, anything and everything which to-day's civilization places at my command--"
"Why, of course," remarked Miss Maltby, listening and not quite understanding, while Mrs. Blatch finished her sentence:
--"not forgetting that highly developed method of registering my political opinions, the ballot box."
"How can I answer back?" cried Miss Maltby.
"Travel by stagecoach is out of date, kings are out of date; communication by canalboat is out of date; an aristocracy is out of date, none more so than a male aristocracy," continued Mrs. Blatch.
"That is a mean way to talk at a poor chap when he can't say anything," said one of the Barnard "co-eds," who was also listening.
It was too much for the girl students, co-eds, and professor. They all wanted to talk back, or talk anyway rather than listen and they made a bee line uptown for the transmitter end of the instrument.