TJ Cline

Jane Barbie was the woman who did the voice recordings for the Bell System.

TJ Cline

Month after month, the little Bell Company lived from hand to mouth.

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No salaries were paid in full.

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Often, for weeks, they were not paid at all.

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In Watson's notebook there are such entries during this period as "Lent Bell fifty cents," "Lent Hubbard twenty cents," "Bought one bottle beer—too bad can't have beer every day."

TJ Cline

When Bell's patent was sixteen months old, there were 778 telephones in use.

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The first "Hello" badge used to identify guests and hosts at conventions, parties, etc. was traced back to September 1880.

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It was on that date that the first Telephone Operators Convention was held at Niagara Falls and the "Hello" badge was created for that event.

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During the depths of the Depression, telephones in use fell from 16 to 13 per 100 population and by the late 1970's the number had surpassed 75 per 100 population.

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Western Electric mass-produced color telephones for the first time in 1954.

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In Japan, Western Electric first sold equipment in 1890, then in 1899 helped form the Nippon Electric Company (NEC).

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This was Japan's first joint venture with an American firm.

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Then we bombed the shit out of them.

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Northern Telecom, Alcatel N.V. and NEC all had roots in Western Electric.

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The use of telephone answering machines became popular in 1974.

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In the first month of the Bell Telephone Company's existence in 1877, only six telephones were sold.

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In 1953, Sony Corporation obtained a transistor license from Western Electric Co. that led to its development of the world's first commercially successful transistor radio.

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In the early days of the telephone, operators would pick up a call and use the phrase, "Well, are you there?".

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It wasn't until 1895 that someone suggested answering the phone with the phrase "number please?"

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Sometimes, early telephone operators would get to know their customers so well, the customers would ask for a reminder call when it was time to remove a cake from the oven, leave the phone off the hook near their sleeping child when they left the house, hoping the operator would hear any cries of distress, request a wake up call before taking a long nap.

TJ Cline

Just like today's computers, early telephones were very confusing to new users. Some became so frustrated with the new technology, they attacked the phone with an ax or ripped it out of the wall.

TJ Cline

In the early 1880's some well-to-do telephone owners started the unusual trend of paying to have a theatre employee hold a telephone receiver backstage, transmitting live plays and operas into their living rooms.

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The first transatlantic wedding took place on December 2, 1933.The groom was in Michigan. The bride, in Sweden. The ceremony took seven minutes and cost $47.50.

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In the Catholic church, St. Gabriel, an archangel, is the patron saint of telecommunications.

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The famous emergency hotline, whereby the President could have immediate contact with the Kremlin wasn't established until 1984.

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Prior to 1984, the only direct contact to the Kremlin was a cumbersome teleprinter link, supplying text messages that then had to be translated, responses drafted and sent back.

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During President Lyndon Johnson's term, many people mis-dialed the White House number and instead reached the home of a New York housewife.

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Rose Brown had a near identical phone number.

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He wrote and thanked her for her diplomacy in receiving his highly sensitive calls and promised to return the favor when her friends and family accidentally dialed the White House.

TJ Cline

A gator in the road is a huge piece of tire from a blow out on a truck, called a gator because the fly up when a truck runs one over and take out your air lines causing you to lose air and forcing your spring brakes to come on which causes a rather abrupt stop.