Try this experiment: tell your grandchild to dial a telephone number. Do you get a puzzled stare back?
Indeed, many of our grandchildren are oblivious to such telephone antiquities as cords, dial tones, answer machines (which are still newfangled things to many Boomers) and, of course, dials.
For many of us, a quantum leap in modern technology was the colored phone. Our parents grew up with (if they had phones at all) a black chunk of bakelite that weighed five pounds or more. It was leased from the phone company, and likely was manufactured by Western Electric, thanks to a sweetheart deal with Bell System. Actually, it wasn't so much a sweetheart deal as a monopoly, since Bell and Western Electric were actually under the same corporate umbrella.
Indeed, for many years, it was a breach of Bell contract terms for a homeowner to plug any device into the phone line except for the leased brick phone that Ma Bell provided. Inspectors would check the lines for any devices that varied from the peculiar voltage requirements of WE's phones, and any customer with the chutzpah to do such a thing would be threatened with disconnection.
My best friend's sister had one of those pink Princess phones in the mid 1960's. It was a nice act of generosity on the part of her parents, because it too was leased, and cost extra since it was (1) an extra phone, and (2) a fancy phone. Remember, back in those days, it was one basic phone per house, unless you wanted to shell out more bucks.
But this column is creeping a bit. It's not about leasing phones, it's about when dialing a phone number meant DIALING a phone number.
Push-button phones appeared as early as 1963 in urban areas, but since I (and many of you) grew up in small-town America, they really weren't an option. No, that familiar clicking sound would count off each number dialed through the earpiece as the spring-loaded dial reliably did its job, with just the right amount of resistance to the finger as we patiently entered in five or seven numbers.
Some of the older phones, like the one my grandparents in Texas had, would have a strange silent spring-like resistance, and wouldn't make the familiar dialing sound until your finger was released. I never could get used to that.
Bell continued to have a leased-phone-only policy throughout the 70's. But prices must have dropped precipitously on colored phones, because I remember my thrifty parents sprang for a harvest gold model in the middle of that decade. It had a dial, of course. While touch-tone phones were available in northwest Arkansas in the mid 70's, they cost extra, hence not in OUR house!
In 1983, the reorganized and split-up AT&T allowed consumers to connect their own phones to their network. That meant that suddenly K-Mart and the like began marketing extremely cheaply-made phones, in contrast to the massively rugged Western Electric models that we paid for many times over through leasing. And it was cheaper to make push-button phones than dial-up types, so the venerable dial began disappearing at that point.
No touch-tone service? no problem. The phones all had switches on them that would cause the pressed keys to make clicking sounds just like dialer phones, so you didn't have to pay the extra five bucks or whatever a month to make them work.
Unlike many of the wonderful long-lost things we grew up with, dial-up phones can still be used with most phone companies. They have maintained backward compatibility so that you can dig out your mother's avacado green bedside phone, affix the proper plug, and use it to dial out on the same wires that might be providing you with high-speed DSL service.
It's nice when an occasional thing doesn't change.
Thanks to http://www.oldradioparts.com/ for the great old photos, and you can also buy an antique dial-up phone there!
Comments (7)
I remember when we used to say a word for the exchange prefix in your area, such as "Whitney 1- 2345" instead of "941-2345". There is a web site that can take a phone number and tell you what words can be spelled out. Type your number into www.phonespell.org and see. Of course, there is no letter assigned to the numbers 1 and 0. So, if you have the number 123-8458, the last four digits spell out TILT (and I happen to like pinball better than video games).
When we were first allowed to buy our own phones, I bought two $10 phones from a department store. I returned the leased one to AT&T and they asked if I knew if they would last as long as theirs. I told them that I had been paying $30 a year to lease theirs, so I could afford to replace these new ones every few months if necessary and save money. Those lasted about eight to ten years.
Posted by David S Paleg | June 23, 2008 1:24 PM
Posted on June 23, 2008 13:24
In my area, dial service did not begin until 1958, when I was seven Before then, we picked up the receiver and a strange lady would say, "Number please," and you would tell her the phone number of the person you wanted to reach. I embraced the dial telephone as I had been intimidated by that odd telephone operator! Mom would have to tell her the number for me. I remember when the Bell System broke up, we had a period when we could return the black phone and buy a new, colorful one or pay five bucks and keep the one we had leased for so many years. My dad bought the old one. I still have it. It works! I wish these cell phones had a real bell in it like those old black ones did-- you could hear it ring all the way in the backyard! I can't hear the blasted cell phone if it is tucked in my pocket! Some things DON'T improve.
Posted by NCeddie | December 15, 2008 6:52 AM
Posted on December 15, 2008 06:52
I remember the "dial" phones, and when phones actually RANG--they had a bell inside them! I recently received a desk rotary bell phone from my grandmother, must have been made in mid-late 70s--had the dial inside the receiver.
Hearing the operator stories reminds me of a heartwarming story I've read about an information operator, posted here: http://home.att.net/~scorh3/Information.html
Posted by Cynthia | December 29, 2008 5:49 PM
Posted on December 29, 2008 17:49
Our number was SP2-5913 Spruce as our prefix! Yup! The black telephones ruled! Complete with party line with your neighbor down the street! Remember party lines? Then we got our colorful (okra green) wall phone with long extention cord! I remember dropping a dime in the old pay phones! We had C & @ Tekephone here in Maryland! Remember the tabletop stand up phones with the dial on the bottom?
Posted by Rivers End | January 1, 2009 11:46 PM
Posted on January 1, 2009 23:46
Our number was SP (Spruce) 2-5913! We had the black telephones complete with party lines! Remember partylines with a neighbor who lived down the street? Later on we got our color (pea soup green) phone that was a wall phone with long extension cord on it! Our telephone company was Cheseapeake and Potomac Telephone here in Maryland! And remember when making a long distant call may have costed allot of money? And those annoying operators who would chime in and say please deposit another 75 cent!
Posted by Rivers End | January 1, 2009 11:57 PM
Posted on January 1, 2009 23:57
I recall that the 1st phone I remember was Baby blue. Funny that using that dial never bothered me then but would drive me nuts now. So slow and cumbersome. We got a dark red one at some point. We had the dial till sometime into the 80s, if not 90s. We were often behind the times in appliances, etc. The old ones seemed to work fine.
I remember my grandparents in Nova Scotia and aunts/uncles up there had party lines. There was a different ring pattern among several to distinguish the intended caller. It was possible to listen in if you wanted but no one did. Not back then. Now we got answering machines and cell phones. Man, do I hate cell phones. Never had one and never will.
Posted by Scott Irv | June 9, 2009 12:35 AM
Posted on June 9, 2009 00:35
remember those phone numbers that begun with letters? ours began with PR,my friends began with,SL,MA,ST,UL,HY,NE. does anyone remembers these.
Posted by vera | February 1, 2010 8:17 AM
Posted on February 1, 2010 08:17