Shopping for the System “Dial M for Maintenance.”

Matthew Hockenberry New York University @hockendougal

“Shopping for the System,” Advertisement, 1947. SHOPPING FOR THE SYSTEM M. Hockenberry

Maintenance is not only the work of repairing and THE SUPPLY DEPARTMENT refurbishing faults in technological systems, it is In the first decade of the twentieth century, the work of organizing the materials that are maintaining the materials required for the function necessary to sustain them. It is the work, one of the network had become something might say, of supply. No where has this been of a concern, even within the seemingly ordered more true than in the history of telephony, where operation of the . Nineteenth century the "invention" of the telephone transformed the sourcing had been a largely haphazard affair, Western Electric Company from one of the most without the precise specifications needed to meet formidable producers of electrical and the requirements of manufacture and maintain the telecommunication equipment to an entity driven complex geographies modern operations required almost entirely by the demands of maintaining the for their persistence. By 1920, even the minimum very system it had brought into being. As one of requirement for maintaining the telephone totaled the largest networks ever created, the telephone tens of millions pounds of copper, tin, and lead; demanded not only the production of the sets tens of thousands tons of galvanized iron and supplied to its subscribers, but the maintenance of steel wire, pole line hard-ware, and paper for the apparatus, switchboards, and lines these directories; and tens of millions feet of lumber and subscribers now depended on. It required a clay conduits.1 Monopoly leverage, Albert Salt, diverse array of human agents, and an equally Western Electric's general purchasing agent, extensive supply of nonhuman ones. To furnish explained in 1914, as "the country's largest them, Western Electric had come to manage one electrical jobber”, had helped to extend Western’s of the most expansive purchasing operations in material demands into the farthest reaches of the the world. Shopping for the system, its stewards supply chain.2 Specifications "prepared by the explained, was no simple task. engineering department" were "usually accepted Under the 1882 arrangement that brought it as standard,” and in some commodities the into the Bell System, Western Electric had not company had now become the single largest only become the sole manufacturer of the purchaser and distributor in the world.3 telephone, it had begun a transition to the This hadn’t always been the case. Before the principal purchasing agent and "one source of turn of the century the regional telephone supply for the Telephone Company.” As a result, companies had operated their own purchasing purchasing became not only an interest of the and supply departments. The only thing the firm, it was the mandate for maintenance as the "average telephonic man knew [then] about very foundation of its system. It was not "mere supplies," E. J. Speh, superintendent of supplies buying," the company proudly explained, but a in Philadelphia, wrote in 1912, "was that he "vast and fascinating task," one that took on an usually did not have the articles he needed when increasingly scientific character borne from "keen he wanted them." After joining the System, all of judgement, extensive research, and scientific the switchboards, telephone sets, "and a great planning." The work of "backing up the deal of the wire, cross-arms, and supplies of that telephone,” required rubber from Singapore, mica kind" could be bought from Western Electric, and from India, and conduit from Ohio. If its surest Speh estimated that by 1900 sixty-five percent of sign was to be a “market basket,” with everything all the material was provided this way. "It from “pencils and pins to telephone poles and appeared logical," he offered, that Western was in locomotives,” it was not one that would be come "the best position to undertake the purchasing for to easily. all associated companies.” Under this new arrangement Western would manufacture and sell To consider this transition, this paper offers some all the materials that were requested, repair or historical background for a presentation at reissue equipment when it was needed, and Maintainers II: Labor, Technology, and Social "establish warehouses in locations suitable for a Orders, April 6-9, 2017. 2 proper distribution of supplies." In short, "it To the unhappy impression left by "liberal undertook all of the functions of a Supply and sprinklings" of the "Black Order'" mark on delivery Purchasing Department."4 tickets, Henry offered that "it may be interesting to As Speh saw it, the regional telephone know that the Supply Agent's office is not companies had been akin to "a chain of retail established for the purpose of holding on to stores whose customers are the lineman, supplies, or to block orders for any material installers, and other workmen who use material to authorized for use."7 build and maintain the telephone plant." As a As he wrote to the regional services, supply result, they had found themselves with many of houses, distribution centers, repair shops, and the same problems that retail operations like sales agents of the System, Henry struggled to "Woolworth five and ten cent stores" might have. illustrate the function of the forms necessary for The daily practice of making local inventories and Western's circulation of supply.8 His need to do so estimates, formulating overstock reports, is suggestive of just how quickly Western Electric overseeing minor repairs, and preparing had become associated with the promise of requisitions had become a critical point of failure provision. In some sense, the entirety of in maintaining the larger system of supply. telephony had collapsed under the formal Sometimes the regional operations were carefully designation of the order requisition, a singular organized, but often not. One of the storerooms mechanism of procurement for Speh's "one Speh encountered in 1910, for example, had a source of supply."9 "Now with the material on "prize catch-all” which contained these supplies, hand, or scheduled, how are we to get it?" Henry valued at $17.44: asked. The answer, it seemed, was always the same. "Whether the material desired is cable or Receiver headband, directory, ringer and terminal boxes, pencils or printed forms, desks or gong, generator, junk wire. worn-out dry chairs, soaps or mops—'Make a requisition for batteries, new No. 87 cords, new No. 96 it.'"10 cords, induction coil, mouthpieces, No. 156 cords attached to No. 110 plugs. No. 12-A THE REQUISITION protectors, glass insulators, copper sleeves, The work done by the requisition served to test connector, bolts, bit, solder, leather strip, abstract out decades of work done by purchasing fiber tube, assortment of screws. From the agents through the turn of century. They not only perspective of the telephone companies it was worked to regulate and routinize the actions necessary to perform their duties only to the inscribed on them, they mediated Western's extent that they could "assure a regular interactions by directing particular presentations replenishment of stocks by frequent order of its corporate role. To H. H. Henry and his upon the Western Electric Company at readers, it was not Western Electric the frequent intervals.”5 manufacturer, but Western Electric the "storekeeper," the distributor, the collection of The expansion of Western’s operation wasn’t as accountants and acquisitions men, who would easy as Speh seemed to suggest. As then- carefully scour reports and records to build up president of Western Electric (and future stocks and estimates. It was Western Electric the president of AT&T) H. B. Thayer explained it in supplier, with the Western Electric News writing of 1913, Western had at first been so reliable that how its traffic department did the work of "routing there was a great deal of uncertainty when it now shipments from the hundreds of points of supply failed to function.6 To concerns over unmet to distributing houses and customers," moving demands, unexpected delays, or unclear "nearly a million tons of freight each year" across accounting, supply men like the Chicago’s H. H. tens of thousands of shipments (by 1917 it was Henry could only affirm the incredible scale and "one billion, eight hundred million odd pounds"). If nearly insurmountable challenges undertaken in the heart of the company had been found at its the work of provisioning. Despite the well-ordered factory in Hawthorne, its nerves were now carried appearance wrought for the standard requisition, by the countless supply and distributing houses the logistical demands inscribed on their (nearly thirty) responsible for running investments redemption as "W. E. Material," were substantial. in stocks and managing deliveries.11

3 These requisitions were connective, adhesive, forms. They not only brought together disparate divisions, they forged the distant links of a global supply chain, holding together the business of buying and the materials of supply until their ultimate installation by telephone technician at the site of subscription. The Western Electric office became a sprawling assembly of diverse sites: the stock maintenance desk that must secure the material summaries serving as estimates of requirements, authorize stocks, and supervise changing of printed forms; the service desk that charted telegraphic and written inquiries for orders before filing claims on discrepancies; a credit desk where inspectors saw returned goods passed in exchange for credit; the billing desk "One Order Covers Them All!" 1924. term stamping orders cross-referenced against and telegraph wires that supported them. Rarely the bound copies of the company's purchase would a requisition be plain and unadorned, agreements.12 absent the idiosyncratic instructions of their

authors. Class C material (repaired and A myriad of considerations went into the filling of refurbished), for example, was often preempted requisitions and handling of their receipts, bills, with the familiar notation, "do not substitute."14 and credits. These byzantine procedures stood in While requisitions may have held a formal quality stark contrast to the clean lines of the initiating in the company's books, they depended on an form, and it was in this disjuncture that all manner informal array of supplemental communiqués to of frustration could be found. Upon receipt produce their desired effect. Readers who would requisitions were sorted and distributed to "take the business of supply into their own Western's various "editors." These men, "who hands," Henry wrote, would be well served to must interpret the requisition" and decipher the anticipate and send requisitions by telegram (and, meaning of its margins, relied on a combination of though it was rarely said, by telephone). "It is guesswork (although "experience has taught him surprising," he remarked, though it should not that it is not safe to guess at what is desired"), have been, just how many were received.15 But catalogues, and prior receipts to ascertain intent wherever telegrams were sent or telephone calls and rework the requisition—or more often, as placed, paper requisitions had to follow. Once these examples suggest, flag it according to its they had been analyzed and edited, these descriptive deficiencies: requisitions were coded and transformed into an order ticket sent to the warehouse or distribution Requisition calls for cable boxes No. center, to either Hawthorne or New York, the A-104379. Edited it will be necessary to know telephone companies C Stocks, or purchased what finish, oak or mahogany. from outside suppliers. The vouchers that followed formed a dense network of index and Requisition calls for generator or motor- inventories, parts lists, and catalogue abstracts, a brushes, size given, but no serial numbers of vast and interconnected chain of paper cards and machines are shown. The correct brushes telegraph cables tasked to stand in for the cannot be furnished without this information. countless suppliers with whom Western worked.16 These forms were second order operators, and no Requisition shows Tungsten lamps, 110 volts. longer content to stand in for people or things, Before order can be entered it is necessary to they now replaced entire sequences of operation. show what wattage is wanted (25, 40 or 60).13 At the beginning of the 1920s the voucher section at Hawthorne issued checks for about Requisitions could quickly disband into the three and a half million dollars to settle its external convoluted network of notations, telephone calls, material bills every month, about $146,000 a day, 4 "Open This Door to Your Biggest Stockroom," 1924. or $18,250 each hour of every working day—"a ALL IN THE DAY’S MARKETING five-dollar bill every time the clock ticks off a It wouldn’t be until the middle of the 1920s that second." The Western Electric News suggested a Western would start to position itself as a kind of person "could buy almost everything with that universal supplier—even later when it would much money." It was enough to say that Western consider the place of the telephone in this bought "almost everything from almost arrangement. Few of its publications afforded the everywhere,” a shopping list comprised of "Indian phone any particular kind of impact in the process mica, Turkish emery, Norway iron, South at all, and it is almost remarkable how slowly the American asphalt, crude rubber from Africa, South company manufacturing the telephone came to America, Mexico, Ceylon, Borneo and other the realization that it was this communicative tropical lands; whale oil from wherever the whale connection that could collapse the entire system happens to be; lard, leather, bank-note paper, that had preceded it. It had been obvious to some rhinoceros hide, dyes, chemicals of all kinds, felt, businessmen as early as 1905 that, in concert tape, jute, [and] silk. In short, "everything from dirt with the catalogue, the telephone could provide a to diamonds." It was so complete that a member powerful mechanism of demand. Frank Lomas of the purchasing department, the Western wrote that, with the "growing use of the telephone Electric News reported, had once made a bet with in country districts," not only could the regular a man "who thought he could name three things customer "notify his merchant if goods he has the Western Electric Company had never bought." purchased are not what he wished," but "he can He couldn't.17 send in his order, and have it booked almost as well as though he were there," sent out by the

5 "All in the Day's Marketing," 1927. delivery man to his door.18 Once this realization immediately—and more each year. While the came to Western, it would envelope the whole of company had then claimed "thirty distribution supply and distribution. Western Electric would houses," the Telephone Register records forty-two not only be a supplier of materials, they would be by 1924, and its Supply Year Books at the end of the supplier of suppliers. the decade, fifty-two. These networked nodes of "If your dealer cannot supply you," their supply, backed by the Hawthorne Works, its new publications increasingly emphasized, "we will.” site at Kearny, and countless warehouses, made As early as 1909, they had already begun to offer the company a universal emblem of availability. 24-hour shipments of "poles, pins, cross-arms, Some of the company's notices asked businesses insulators, wires," among other items. Line to "make your order book—your store house," to construction material could be had "when you "supply your needs" with "everything electrical" want it."19 While not every component was offered under one cover. Others suggested that with such appalling efficiency, many were. While businesses might have had resources they didn't the 1915 Voice Highways conceded that some even know about. One example was "an electrical cables would sluggishly ship "three to four weeks" supply room within easy call," but which "might as after receipt, "certain types" could be sent well be locked." Behind the door, they wrote, was

6 the Western Electric Distribution House, a "source send their words "more than one-third of the way of supply" ready to stand as "your own reserve."20 around the world," to bring "within arm's reach the The human representatives of the trade of markets thousands of miles away."24 organization were no longer the factory workers at Telephony tended toward a particular kind of Hawthorne, or linemen stringing wire—they were synchronicity in its communication. Speech the purchasing agent and the dealer. It seemed demanded an immediacy of listening, of that purchasing could become an almost response, that Western could now align to the transcendent and all-consuming act. Markets particular perception of system and efficiency it replaced by marketing. Not "mere buying," the had long struggled with. This was premised upon Western Electric man sets out upon a "vast and the strange acceptance of its listeners that the fascinating task," requiring "keen judgement, movement of the telephone, that is to say the extensive research, and scientific planning" to movement of the vocal cords and of speech ensure "adequate sources of supply."21 In the entering the receiver, was somehow a kind of work of "backing up your telephone," Western non-movement—not unlike the labor of spoke of buying rubber from Singapore, mica from maintenance itself, from the domestic images India, and conduit from Ohio. Like the "story of brought out for Western’s “market basket” to its silk" it would capture in its 1920s "material series," position “backing” the telephone system. When Western advertised how it found the source for the regional Bells and external clients came to the telephone's insulation in the mulberry bush. All speak to Western Electric, they spoke only to the better to illustrate the "huge market basket" Western Electric. “The Western Electric Gets it," that Western now carried. From "pencils to as H. H. Henry had written: telephone poles," in "go pins," in go "locomotives," but nothing bought "without investigation of world- An attorney called upon to address a class in wide sources of supply." From telephone poles to "Commercial Law" announced as his subject precious metals, stocking the Bell system "calls "What becomes of a man's money when he for imagination," for "minds unshackled" in their dies" and was very promptly and unexpectedly global search for supply.22 answered by a voice from the rear, "The The telephone now offered a way of lawyers get it." Undoubtedly if the question encapsulating the maintenance of production into was asked of the average telephone a singular point of call, enrolling scores of employee, "What becomes of your requisitions businesses and agents within a subscription of after they are made out and approved," the supply. Notices that appeared in the 1925 answer would be, "The Western Electric gets Manufacturer's Record offered a cure for the them," and further than that little could be "purchasing agent's nightmare." While the world's said.25 "champion bookworm" may be the purchasing agent of an industrial plant, even he, Western By the end of the decade, it was clear this identity suggested, "must be appalled by the mass of would be what remained in the years to follow, as catalogues and sales literature which confronts Western’s abilities as an innovator, and its him every time he wants to buy something." In interests in electricity, were spun out to the newly answer, Western suggested itself as the "center" formed Bell Laboratories and the Electric of an electric exchange that could relieve him of Company. There is a sense of loss here, a the "burden of buying," searching markets "the pleading in the company’s later advertisements. country over" with "exacting specifications." For Personified in the character of a shopping purchasers and storekeepers, supplies were now switchboard, it seems uncertain of the position it "ready at your call." The telephone transformed has found for itself. “I’m the manufacturer for the order books, catalogues, and the distant sites of Bell System, too,” it says. Maybe so, but that directories into telephonic storehouses.23 As the wouldn't be nearly as important as shopping for 1930 "Telephone Almanac" suggested, only the the system. telephone that could place its users within earshot of over "29,500,000" others, in "more than a score of widely separated lands." Only the telephone that could enable "merchant or manufacturer" to

7 1. Western Electric, "Supply and Demand," NMAH, 1920. otherwise in need of mending, e.g., "Put him in Class C "75,000,000 pounds of copper, 10,000 tons of stock." Western Electric News 10, no. 1 (1921): xxi. galvanized iron and steel wire, 12,000 tons of pole line 15. "Ship by express today, requisition 1610 being mailed"; hard-ware, 100,000.000 pounds of lead, 1,000,000 or perhaps within a few days after receipt of requisition, pounds of antimony, 700,000 pounds of tin, 10,000,000 "When may we expect delivery on requisition 677, pounds of sheet and rod brass, 15,000 tons of paper for holding up work.” H. H. Henry, "The Work of the Supply directories, more than 24,000,000 feet of lumber, Department," Bell Telephone News 2, no. 7 (February, 12,000,000 feet of clay conduits, and 10,000,000 glass 1913): 7. insulators." 16. Voucher systems of this sort, handling distribution of 2. Salt oversaw a veritable army of offices and operatives purchasing through internal divisions and into external in service to this supply. Among his assistant general suppliers, had been used extensively by the railroads. It purchasing agents, there was an office in New York had become increasingly common in integrated firms (telephone supplies, directories, stationary, and foreign (notably Carnegie Steel). Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., The factories), one in Chicago (Western suppliers and Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Hawthorne), an agent who dealt with timber supplies and Business (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, telephone poles, and a separate division for handling 1977), 267. electrical supply. 17. "The Long Green and the Red Tape," Western Electric 3. Albert Salt, "The Purchasing Department—Its Function News 6, no. 12 (February 1918): 14-15. and Organization," Western Electric News 3, no. 2 (April 18. Frank Lomas, "How the Country Merchant Meets the 1914): 1-3. Namely in "copper wire, iron and steel wire… Competition of the Catalogue House," in The Book on cross-arms, [and] pole line hardware.” Salt would go on Selling, The Business Man's Library, vol. 4 (New York: to become the first president of Graybar when it was first The System Company, 1905) formed in 1925. See Richard Blodgett, Timeless Values, 19. "Western Electric Service," "Line Construction Material" Enduring Innovation: The Graybar Story (Old Lyme, CT: and "24-Hour Shipments," NMAH, 1909. Greenwich, 2009). 20. It was ready, they suggested "for your regular and 4. E. J. Speh, "Betterments in Supply Work," The emergency demands" with "everything from the bottom Telephone News 8, no. 3 (February 1, 1912): 3-7. of the hole to the top of the pole." "Everything From the 5. E. J. Speh, "Betterments in Supply Work," The Bottom of the Hole—To the Top of the Pole," Western Telephone News 8, no. 3 (February 1, 1912): 3-7. Electric, "Locked!" and "Make Your Order Book Your 6. H. B. Thayer, "The Western Electric Company and Its Store House," NMAH, 1924. A later example along these Relation to the Bell System," Bell Telephone News 6, no. lines is "Some Lamp Storerooms You Didn't Know You 3 (October 1916): 5-8. Had" from 1929. 7. H. H. Henry, "The Work of the Supply Department," Bell 21. Western Electric, "In Case You Think That Purchasing Telephone News 2, no. 7 (February, 1913): 6-7. Merely Means Buying," Western Electric College Papers, 8. H. H. Henry, "The Work of the Supply Department," Bell no. 102, AT&T Archives, 1930. Telephone News 2, no. 7 (February, 1913): 6-7. 22. Western Electric, ""Backing Up Your Telephone," NMAH, 9. E. J. Speh, "Betterments in Supply Work," The 1930 and "Manufacturers... Purchasers... Distributors…" Telephone News 8, no. 3 (February 1, 1912): 3. Western Electric College Papers, no. 108, AT&T 10. H. H. Henry, "The Work of the Supply Department," Bell Archives, 1930. Telephone News 2, no. 7 (February, 1913): 6-7. 23. Western Electric, "Purchasing Agent's Nightmare—And 11. "Seeing That It Gets There," Western Electric News 6, How to Cure It," NMAH, 1925. no. 4 (June, 1917): 3-6 First among these distributing 24. AT&T, "Telephone Almanac," AT&T Archives, 1930. houses was Philadelphia in 1901, to be followed by St. 25. H. H. Henry, "The Work of the Supply Department," Bell Louis, Denver, Kansas City, San Francisco, Illinois, Telephone News 2, no. 7 (February, 1913): 6-7. Cincinnati, New York, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Indiana, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Seattle, Boston, Dallas, Michigan, Portland, Cleveland, Houston, New Orleans, Connecticut (New Haven), Washington, Milwaukee, Long Island (Brooklyn), New Jersey (Newark) and finally Jacksonville in 1927. Albert B. Iardella, ed., Western Electric and the Bell System: A Survey of Service (New York: Western Electric, 1964). 12. H. H. Henry, "The Work of the Supply Department," Bell Telephone News 2, no. 7 (February, 1913): 6-7. 13. H. H. Henry, "The Work of the Supply Department," Bell Telephone News 2, no. 7 (February, 1913): 6-7. 14. Class C Stock includes items awaiting repair, as opposed to stock in service or ready for general supply and distribution. It was used as both a general name for the work of repair, and to humorously describe something (or someone) as out of date, broken, or

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