Published by the History Group, Inc.

DENVER, COLORADO

(303) 296-1221 www.telcomhistory.org summer 2012, Vol. 16, no. 2 Jody Georgeson, Editor

Director’s Report touring the 931 14th St. building in July. We’ve led a bunch of tours this We continue to accept donations quarter, including several for of material. Some of our recent CenturyLink groups. They are very favorites are: interested in the history of their new From Jim Logan, we received a acquisition, and especially in the copy of the General historic headquarters building. We’ve Directory Conference in NYC, also given tours for groups ranging 1928. from Red Hat clubs to boy scout Fay Schlotfeldt is a serial donor; troops. this time he gifted us with NWB We’ve also had a lot of PBX directories President’s Club researchers. We hosted a young memory books, photographs and man who is doing a history of the memorabilia. telephone in Ogden, Utah as his Dave Felice arranged for us to thesis. He and his wife spent 3 days get disks of about 24 radio ads with us. Another fellow is a retired from Fred Arthur. These were Montana PUC member, who bought commissioned by the Bell a stock certificate from us and then System, and were used by many became interested in its history. He of the companies. The ones we and his wife came to town for a day have were done for the and a half. Yet another young man Chesapeake and Potomac is producing a documentary about Telephone Company. telephones for the National History Mary Murphy sent us everything Day competition from a service rep.’s desk, The volunteers took a field trip to including handbooks, booklets, the Vance Kirkland Museum in photographs and files. Denver. They have an extensive collection of decorative art, which Thanks to all of our donors and includes pottery, furniture and members. Your interest and support telephones! Their volunteers will be make this all worthwhile!

1 Retractions

I must have been day-dreaming when I put together the last issue. Two contributors contacted me with mistakes:

1. I reported that the Museum of Teletype Machines at the has expanded to Museum of Communications include Sundays. They expanded to include the 1st Sunday of each Along with all the other month only at this stage. The equipment at the Museum of Museum’s hours are: Communications in Seattle, you’ll • Tuesdays from 8:30 to 2:00 find over 30 different kinds of • First Sunday of each month, from teletype machines, including a 1918 11:30 to 4:00 version, and one built by the Lorentz • By appointment Company in Germany, which developed the Enigma machine to 2. The photo purporting to be of the turn text into encrypted messages shelter cabin on Long’s Peak was of during World War II. Teletype some other cabin entirely. Here’s the equipment was used by the FBI, real thing: commercial airlines, stockbrokerage firms, and wire services like Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI) to distribute news articles to newspapers and radio broadcasts. The teletype machine or tele- evolved through a series of inventions by a number of engineers, including Royal Earl House, David Edward Hughes, Emile Baudot, Donald Murray, Charles Krum, Edward Kleinschmidt and Frederick G. Creed. By 1846, the Morse telegraph service was operational between Washington, D.C., and New York. Royal Earl House patented his printing telegraph that same year. He linked two 28-key piano-style keyboards by wire. Each piano key Thanks to Don Ostrand and represented a letter of the alphabet Don Warsavage for setting me and when pressed caused the straight! I apologize for the corresponding letter to print at the confusion. receiving end. The printer could copy

2 and print up to 2,000 words per hour. The Teletype Corporation, a part This invention was first put in of AT&T’s operation and exhibited at the manufacturing arm since 1930, was Mechanics Institute in New York in originally founded in 1906 as the 1844. Morkrum Company. In 1925, a Landline operations merger between Morkrum and began in 1849 when a circuit was put Kleinschmidt Electric Company in service between Philadelphia and created the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt New York City. In 1855, David Company. The name was changed Edward Hughes introduced an in December 1928 to Teletype improved machine built on the work Corporation. In 1930, Teletype of Royal Earl House. In less than two Corporation was purchased by the years, a number of small telegraph American Telephone and Telegraph companies, including Western Union Company and became a subsidiary in early stages of development, of Western Electric. united to form one large corporation In 1984, the divestiture of the – Western Union Telegraph Co. Bell System resulted in the Teletype appeared to carry on the business of name and logo being replaced by the on the Hughes system. AT&T name and logo, eventually Donald Murray (1865–1945), resulting in the brand being developed a -like extinguished. keyboard. The Murray system employed an intermediate step, a keyboard perforator, which allowed an operator to punch a paper tape, and a tape transmitter for sending the message from the . At the receiving end of the line, a printing mechanism would print on a paper tape, and/or a re-perforator could be used to make a perforated copy of the message.

In 1908, a working teleprinter Just a few of the teletype machines on was produced by the Morkrum display at the Museum of Communications Company, which was field tested with the Alton Railroad. In 1910, the To see some of these machines, Morkrum Company designed and and hundreds of other examples of installed the first commercial working communications equipment, teletypewriter system on Postal visit the Museum of Communications Telegraph Company lines between at 7000 East Marginal Way South, Boston and New York City. Seattle. We’re open every Tuesday There have been a number of from 8:30am to 2:00pm, and every successful manufacturers of teletype first Sunday from 11:30am to equipment, including the German 4:00pm. Siemens, Italian Olivetti, and British Creed and Company

3 Dr. , Mable Grosvenor, Bell’s grand- M.D.? daughter. A book review by The general thrust of the book is Herb Hackenburg about the long and loving marriage between Alex and Mabel. Although she was totally deaf (in a time when deaf people were treated as poor, dumb unfortunates), the very attractive and stylish Mabel was an extraordinary success as a wife, mother, household manager, book- keeper and society leader. The very large, handsome, articulate, intelligent, usually slightly shabbily-dressed Alex was a fine match for Mabel. Keeping him centered on things (inventions with commercial value, research, children, assorted jobs, etc.) was a never-ending chore for his wife. One early example is that Alex had absolutely no interest in showing his Reluctant Genius by Charlotte first working telephone to anyone. Gray is one of the more recent books Mabel was the only one who could (copyright 2006) about Alexander convince him to exhibit his telephone Graham Bell. Gray’s excellent and at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in highly readable book is different from Philadelphia. most Bell biographies in that while Mabel handled the family the author makes reference to the finances -- not surprising, since Alex invention of the telephone and its turned the one-third ownership of the importance to the world, she Bell Telephone Company over to her concentrates on Alexander and his the day he received the stock wife Mabel Bell’s life after the birth of certificates. This turned out to the telephone. represent a lot of money; which was Gray’s extensive research and good, because Alex liked to spend a excellent writing combine to make an lot of money, mostly on research. extraordinary biography. Her sources Mabel also had to contend with his include 147,700 original Bell items in tendency to flit from one project to the Library of Congress; 209 another. volumes of additional original items Ever the practical one, Mabel housed in Bell’s estate in Baddeck, tried to steer Alex to invent another Nova Scotia; plus scores of books, item with commercial value like the recordings, films and interviews. telephone. At one of his Wednesday Interviews of family members evening meetings of scientists in included three with 101-year-old Dr. 1906, Bell heard one of them describe seeing the Wright brothers’

4 flying machine. Alex had been Telephone Design tinkering with kites and flying Our recent trip to the Kirkland machines, too. Now he was serious. Museum got me thinking about the Mabel, too, saw the commercial designers of the telephones in our value of such machines. She came collection. up with a plan to keep him on track. With her personal funds, she started In addition to considering the Aerial Experiment Association. aesthetics, usability, and She gave the money to Alex so he ergonomics, industrial design could hire some of the best young encompasses the engineering of pioneers in the business to help him objects, usefulness as well as build his airplane. Three men were usability, market placement, and hired: Glenn Curtiss, Douglas other concerns such as seduction, McCurdy and Casey Baldwin. psychology, desire, and the The U S Army assigned Lieutenant emotional attachment of the user to Thomas Selfridge to the team. the object. Product design and industrial design can overlap into the fields of user interface design, information design and interaction design. Henry Dreyfuss (1904 –1972) was an American industrial designer who dramatically improved the look, feel, and usability of dozens of The AEA built five (four carried a consumer products, including the pilot) successful flying machines. telephone. After the secretive Wright brothers flew their machine, the Scientific American magazine offered a trophy for the first public flight over a measured course of one kilometer. The idea was to get the Wrights to fly in public. They didn’t take the bait, but AEA did, and won the trophy. Dr. Bell? It’s true. President James Abram Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau in 1881. As Garfield lay wounded in a hospital, Bell

worked day and night to build an Western Electric model 302, 1937 electronic device that would find the bullet. While the machine was Dreyfus designed the Western partially successful, the bullet was Electric 302 tabletop telephone for too deep to be precisely located. In Bell Laboratories in 1930. It was 1886, the University of Heidelberg produced from 1937 through 1950, awarded Bell an honorary doctorate and was found almost universally in in medicine for his contribution to the United States from 1937 until the surgical practice. introduction of touch-tone dialing.

5 in 1964. It combined the receiver, transmitter and dial into a single element nested into a compact base. Both wall and desk sets were produced.

Western Electric 500 set

Dreyfus also designed the "500" desk telephone (1949), a Bell System standard for years.

Beginning in 1954, this was the first phone to be offered in colors other Trimline phone, 1964 than black. It was still the most commonly used model in the US as The Ericofon® by Gosta late as 1995. Thames, Ralph Lysell and Hugo Blomberg is considered a landmark in industrial design. In Sweden, it is known as the cobra telephone because of its resemblance to that creature.

Princess phone, 1959

The Dreyfus-designed Princess® phone made its debut in 1959. It was designed for and marketed to teeenage girls. 1958 Miss America The Ericofon, 1954 Marilyn Van Derbur wore a gown and tiara when advertising the Michael Graves (1934- ) is an Princess on TV and print ads using American architect who designed a such memorable lines as, “It’s little, line of household goods for Target it’s lovely, it lights! And “It nestles in stores. His philosophy is to balance niches—it glows in the dark!” form and function and create objects The Trimline® desk telephone that are accessible and intuitive as was designed by Donald M. Genaro well as beautiful. He believes that

6 people instinctively appreciate great design and that it should be affordable and accessible to all.

The Bell Telephone relieves anxieties

A Happening of Joy By Herb Hackenburg

Recently, at the bridge club, I was waiting to pay my fee when a plain white envelope was thrust into my hand. I looked to see the smiling face of Joy Beets, a sometime Michael Graves Model MG1000 partner. “I want you to have that,” Jonathan Ive is Senior VP of she said in her quiet way. Design at Apple Inc. His designs I stepped out of line, opened the include the iMac, iPod, MacBook Air, envelope and saw five old postcards. iPhone, and iPad. My knees buckled. The Telecom- munications History Group had just gained a small collection of rare and, telephone history-wise, significant postcards. This is how these bits of ephemera made it to THG. The journey began in the tiny town of Lemon, Missouri, located about six miles south of Iowa and mid-way between the Nebraska and Illinois borders. Abraham Lemen (not a misspelling – the town fathers misspelled the name in the original incorporation papers in 1875) was iPhone, 2007 the town founder. His great- granddaughter, Nellie, became the town’s telephone operator when the You can see all of these phones th little co-op company’s first operator at our museum at 931 14 Street in retired. Denver. We are open by For decades, from the late 1890s appointment: to the 1960s, in small towns across Phone: 303-296-1221 the nation, a single operator Email: [email protected]. (sometimes two) tended the town’s only switchboard. She (Central was

7 almost always a woman) connected the Lemon’s quaint, “hick-town” all the local and long distance calls, magneto service. knew all the gossip, would take a Joy went on to graduate from message for customers who were Wichita University, worked for out of town and give it to them when Boeing and married a golf pro. In they returned, reminded callers to 1955, she moved to Salina, Kansas buy tickets for the school play, and where her husband was the pro at would track and provide the latest the country club. In 1971, the kids scores of the town’s sports teams. were raised, so Joy became Usually, she also operated the interested in deltiology, the study of volunteer fire department’s alert old postcards. Joy became a system – often a siren on the town’s veritable queen of postcards, with water tower. more than 20,000 in Into the heart of the shopping district with Nellie took the Bell Telephone her collection. It job to make a little takes seven albums extra money. With just to hold Joy’s her first $8 check, telephone cards. she purchased a Joy began her violin. Nellie’s hobby with her daughter Joy said, mother’s small “I really didn’t like collection and got that violin when some help from two my mom made cousins who were me take lessons.” serious collectors. She added, “It’s “At that time, hard for a girl to collecting the cards keep secrets was fairly easy, when her mother because the hobby is the town’s wasn’t as big as it is operator.” today,” Joy said. “I Joy still has made a special the newspaper effort for telephone article written by cards because of her mother in the my mom’s job as an late 1940s, just operator, and the after the phone cards seem a little company installed more interesting the dial system than most.” that made her job disappear. In her The first postcard in the US was story Nellie describes the six issued in 1873 by the Interstate decades of service that the little Industrial Exposition in Chicago. The customer-owned company and US Post Office had just said they Central had provided the town. The would deliver the little cards for a story was a mild slap at a big-city penny. The Golden Age of postcards newspaper’s earlier story describing was 1898-1918.

8 The telephone at that time was a thousands and given away at wonderful piece of new technology telephone offices across the nation. and while most people couldn’t The campaign worked. More people afford the service, they were began to buy telephone service. fascinated by the machine. It was no AT&T went on to become the biggest surprise that telephones and corporation in the world. telephone conversations became a One might say it was all in the major subject on the front of cards! postcards. It was like having a few seconds of phone service for a You can see the postcards Joy penny. donated along with many others in Meanwhile, the American Bell the THG archives. Telephone Company, headquartered in Boston had fallen on hard times. In 1907, financier J. P. Morgan bought the Bell company, moved it to New York City, and renamed it American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) and brought the 60-year-old former head of the company, Theodore Vail, out of retirement and told him to “fix it.”

As this issue goes to press, much of our country is experiencing record-setting heat, devastating fires and destructive flooding. Our thoughts are with those who have A doctor quick – by Bell Telephone been affected by these horrible Vail reorganized and streamlined conditions. I hope all of you, dear the company, authorized a research members, stay cool and safe in the budget, and coordinated a national coming months of summer. advertising campaign. Postcards were an important part of the campaign. Two top illustrators were hired to do the artwork on the front of the cards. They featured colorful graphic illustrations showing how “the speaking telephone” could make your life safer, easier and more convenient. This set of 12 high- quality cards were printed by the

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