The world of interpersonal communications began a major revolution in 1876 when inventor Alexander Graham Bell filed for a patent on the telephone, beating inventor Elisha Gray by a matter of hours. Commercial telephone service in the United States began the following year. In the beginning, telephones were basically an intercom system in which one telephone would be wired directly to a second telephone. Telephones were originally leased in pairs, which meant that a business wanting to connect its main office to four outlying offices would lease four pairs of phones. The ability of one phone to connect with several other telephones required the development of a telephone exchange.
The idea of a telephone exchange was initially developed in 1876 by Tivadar Puskás (1844-1893), a Hungarian engineer working for Thomas Edison. Using his ideas, the Bell Telephone Company in Boston built the first experimental telephone exchange in 1877.
The first commercial telephone exchange was designed and built by George Coy who had been inspired by a lecture by Alexander Graham Bell in New Haven, Connecticut. This resulted in the first commercial telephone exchange which was established in New Haven in 1878. This first telephone exchange, which went into operation with 21 subscribers paying $1.50 per month for the service, could handle as many as 64 customers, but only two conversations could be handled simultaneously. At the end of the first month, when the first telephone directory was published, there were 50 subscribers. The following year the idea of assigning the telephone customers a number emerged in which callers would ask the operator to connect with a certain number rather than giving her (operators were always women) a name.
The American Telephone and Telegraph Company was created in 1885 to operate the long-distance telephone network. Tivadar Puskás introduced the multiplex switchboard in 1887.
The number of independent telephone companies increased dramatically after the original telephone patents expired in 1893.
The telephone exchange may have had some corruption problems as some business owners felt that unscrupulous operators were transferring calls to their competitors. In 1891, a Kansas City undertaker invented the first automatic dialing system to overcome this perceived problem and to get rid of operators.
Shown below are some museum displays of telephone exchanges.
Heritage Station Museum, Pendleton, Oregon
According to the display:
“From the beginning, telephone operator work was almost exclusively a female job. Operators helped customers make long distance calls, provided information and made sure the system worked smoothly.
In the early days of the telephone, it was common to refer to these workers as ‘hello girls.’ Operators manually connected calls using cable with plugs at each end. However, as the telephone became more popular, manual switching became impractical and was eventually replaced with automatic electromechanical switching devices.”
Franklin County Historical Society and Museum, Pasco, Washington
East Benton County Museum in Kennewick, Washington
Lake Chelan Historical Society Museum in Chelan, Washington
Historical Society Museum, Poulsbro, Washington
Shoshone County Mining and Smelting Museum, Kellogg, Idaho
More museum exhibits
Museums 301: Telephones (photo diary)
Museums 301: Radios (photo diary)
Museums 301: Bathrooms (photo diary)
Museums 201: Forest fire lookouts (photo diary)
Museums 201: Antique farming equipment (photo diary)
Museums 401: Typewriters (photo diary)
Museums 401: Shoes (photo diary)
Museums 301: Medicines (photo diary)