Alexander Graham Bell was awarded a patent for the electric telephone in 1876. Oddly, the 1900-1920 novels that I've read don't mention the telephone. Instead, they mentioned letters or telegrams. Is it because the telephone was still a rarity during that time?
I can't say exactly, but I would imagine the ubiquity of the telephone was tied directly to the prevalence of telecommunication infrastructure. Lines, switchboards, trained operators, etc. I'm sure cities had them first, suburbs second, and the sticks last. And it probably moved outward from government and business into concentrated apartments and then individual homes. Look for books through "history of the telephone" and I'm sure you'll find a bunch.
Somewhat. From what I could find out, only 35% of households had a telephone in 1920 Percentage of housing units with telephones in the United States from 1920 to 2008 I was able to find out these numbers: In 1877-78, the first telephone line was constructed, the first switchboard was created and the first telephone exchange was in operation. 1881 – 49,000 telephones in use in the USA 1900 – 600,000 phones 1905 – 2.2 million 1910 – 5.8 million (1915 - the transcontinental telephone line began operating.) 1948 - 30 million 1960s - 80 million phone hookups in the U.S. and 160 million in the world 1980 - more than 175 million telephone subscriber lines in the U.S. 1870s – 1940s: Telephone
It also wouldn't surprise me if letters and telegrams were simply cheaper back then. Telephone calls must have been expensive, or at least, much more expensive than they are now. This Stack Exchange post talks about 1920 costs. From what I read there, calls to local exchanges were free, but long-distance ones (from city to city) were much more expensive. There is a picture in the thread with costs. Here is some ripped text: a call from New York to Indianapolis, Indiana would cost $4.15 for the first three minutes and $1.35 for each additional minute ("or fraction thereof"). a call from New York to Knoxville, Tennessee would cost about the same - $4.10 for the first three minutes and $1.35 for each additional minute. and a call from New York to Los Angeles, California would cost a lot more - $15.65 for the first three minutes and $5.20 for each additional minute. $4.15 is a lot for three minutes. But of course, we must not forget inflation! Today, $4.15 is $65.32. That's insanely expensive... but back then, the telephone was novel and high-tech, so it makes sense. As a techie, I wonder how companies billed customers back in those days. What methods did they use to keep track of the calls they made?
I also have to say that this is an interesting list of statistics. I love seeing how technology evolved and integrated into people's lives with time.
You reminded me that even when I was a child in the 1960s, long distance was very expensive and rarely used. We used to write a lot of letters! My mother's sister moved out to Alberta when she got married, and had her kids there. They took the train to visit us every summer, so I got close with those cousins. And we used to write letters back and forth all the time because long distance was only used for emergencies!
I grew up in the early 2000s. Telephones were not that expensive by that time. I've never written a letter to a friend, or received one... Receiving anything by mail was also a bit of a pain. I lived in a village and the houses in my street didn't have numbers, or a street name! If you wanted to write to me, you had to address the village itself with my name. Then the mailman would call the house landline and ask for instructions. That's why nobody bothered with physical mail unless we wanted to order goods from Athens or somewhere else in the mainland. Telephone calls were cheap in those days, so, we just did that instead
They weren't cheap in the 90s either when I had my first apartment and phone bill. The $.99 one rate out of state was the a quantum leap in pricing before cellphones detonated all that.
I remember my mother used to write letters to my grandmother during the early 80s. When my mother began to use long distance calls, she used to yell at the phone so that my grandmother could hear because the sound from long distance calls used to be weak in those days.
Oh yeah, I remember. People didn't make long distance phone calls unless they absolutley had to, and then you'd keep it as short as possible. Letter writing was much bigger then, and the mail was a lot more reliable than it tends to be now. The letter carriers and package deliverers in general were far more professional than they tend to be now (with some exceptions of course). But that applied to every job—professionalism was expected and demanded, or you wouldn't keep the job. Sorry, going off topic. How the world has changed, at least the part of it I live in.
IBM was introducing card punch accounting systems under Watson Sr in the 20’s, so I would guess manual logs by operators,, transcribed onto cards back then. By the late 60’s when Kernighan’s two projects - Unix and C - came to fruition, automated switches took care of that.
This is really interesting history to learn about. Telephones were really not always the same as they seem they would have been.
