The Story of Communication:

Telephone—Fascinating Facts

• The building of skyscrapers awaited the invention of the telephone.
• Henry David Thoreau was not impressed with the invention of the telephone. The writer wondered if anyone would have anything worth saying over it.
• The telegraph evened out the wide variation in the prices of goods from city to city.
• Rumor had it that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid fled to South America because the telegraph made robbery too risky.
• A telegraph was operating in England before Samuel Morse invented his.
• Private ownership of television in the U.S. can be traced step by step back to the government’s refusal to buy Samuel Morse’s telegraph.
• Early garbled telegraph messages included this one. . It was sent as, “See the judge at once and get excused. I cannot send a man in your place,” but it was delivered as, “See the judge at once and get executed. I can send a man in your place.”
• When reporters combined words to save on telegraph costs, the telegraph companies started counting every three letters as a word.
• Thanks to the telegraph, President James Polk learned of the American victory at Vera Cruz, Mexico, from the publisher of the Baltimore Sun.
• Western Union messengers who delivered a “Happy Birthday” message were ordered to sing it.
• You know that a noun like “fax” enters our lexicon when it also becomes a verb and an adjective.
• Alexander Bell’s telephone came to public notice when the emperor of Brazil saw a demonstration and exclaimed, “My God, it talks!”
• Alexander Bell tried to sell his telephone company to Western Union, which turned him down. A few years later the phone company bought Western Union.
• An early telephone ad had to explain to customers that the wires were not hollow.
• Another telephone ad assured customers of privacy because its subscribers were too well-bred to listen in.
• Early British telephone officials scolded a subscriber for calling the fire brigade, noting that the fire was not on his property.
• The first telephone operators were teenage boys. They were so rowdy that managers got the idea of employing young ladies.
• The first telephone operator headsets weighed more than six pounds.
• The dial telephone was invented by an undertaker who was convinced that an operator was steering customers to a competitor.
• One early telephone booth locked callers inside until a coin was deposited to unlock the door.
• Until 1959, customers could have any color telephone they wanted, as long as they wanted black.
• Some telemarketing calls come from “boiler rooms” in India.
• Researchers are working on automatic translation telephones.
• The phone request, “Keep in touch,” involves no touching. So does the slogan, “Reach out and touch someone.”
• A 2004 survey asked adults what invention they hate most but can't live without. Nearly one person in three said the cellphone.
• There have been experiments to put telephones in eyeglasses.
• Video teleconferencing grew out of an experiment nicknamed “The-Teacher-in-the-Sky” that transmitted graduate courses to teachers in remote locations.

More Resources for Telephone

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