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The telephone played a major communications role in American history from the 1876 publication of its first patent by Alexander Graham Bell onward. In the 20th century the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) dominated the telecommunication market as the at times largest company in the world, until it was broken up in 1982 and replaced by a system of competitors.
Automatic, or dial, systems were developed in the 1920s to reduce labor costs as usage increased, and to ensure privacy to the customer. As phone systems became more sophisticated, less direct intervention by the telephone operator was necessary to complete calls.
Telephone numbers listed in 1920 in New York City having three-letter exchange prefixes. In the United States, the most-populous cities, such as New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago, initially implemented dial service with telephone numbers consisting of three letters and four digits (3L-4N) according to a system developed by W. G. Blauvelt of AT&T in 1917. [1]
The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 7, 1876. The modern telephone is the result of the work of many people. [10] Alexander Graham Bell was, however, the first to patent the telephone, as an "apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically".
20 March 1880: National Bell Telephone merges with others to form the American Bell Telephone Company. 1 April 1880: world's first wireless telephone call on Bell and Tainter's photophone (distant precursor to fiber-optic communications) from the Franklin School in Washington, D.C. to the window of Bell's laboratory, 213 meters away. [20] [21]
A Western Electric desk stand telephone of the 1920s and 30s. The candlestick telephone (or pole telephone) is a style of telephone that was common from the late 1890s to the 1940s. A candlestick telephone is also often referred to as a desk stand, an upright, or a stick phone. Candlestick telephones featured a mouthpiece (transmitter) mounted ...
After the failed strike of 1919, the CTUA entered a long period of decline. Membership remained constant at about 2000 members throughout the 1920s and into the depression years as Morse operators were replaced by Teletype operators. Many Western Union employees left the CTUA to join the Association of Western Union Employees (AWUE), a company ...
The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over 100 years from its creation in 1877 until its antitrust breakup in 1983.