Clemson University TigerPrints All Theses Theses 5-2013 Noiseless, Automatic Service: The iH story of Domestic Servant Call Bell Systems in Charleston, South Carolina, 1740-1900 Wendy Danielle Madill Clemson University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses Part of the Historic Preservation and Conservation Commons Recommended Citation Madill, Wendy Danielle, "Noiseless, Automatic Service: The iH story of Domestic Servant Call Bell Systems in Charleston, South Carolina, 1740-1900" (2013). All Theses. 1660. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/1660 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. NOISELESS, AUTOMATIC SERVICE: THE HISTORY OF DOMESTIC SERVANT BELL SYSTEMS IN CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, 1740-1900 A Thesis Presented to The Graduate School of Clemson University and College of Charleston In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science Historic Preservation by Wendy Danielle Madill May 2013 Accepted by: Dr. Carter L. Hudgins, Committee Chair Elizabeth Garrett Ryan Richard Marks, III ABSTRACT Shortly before Europe’s industrial revolution, tradesmen discovered an ingenious way to rig bells in houses to mechanize communication between homeowners and their servants. Mechanical bell systems, now known as house bells or servant call bells, were prevalent in Britain and America from the late 1700s to the early twentieth century. These technological ancestors of today’s telephone were operated by the simple pull of a knob or a tug of a tassel mounted on an interior wall.