Folder Historian's Corner
Help preserve the history of telephony. Send your original writing works including research projects, interviews, anecdotes & stories, etc.
Categories
Folder AT&T Chester Telephone Pole Farm
In 2015-16 TCI provided background info for a visitor center display for the site of the "Outdoor Laboratory" - managed by the Chester Historical Society. Reference the Singing Wires, June 2016 article "What Happened at AT&T’s Chester, NJ Open-air Laboratory?" Here are some of the documents referenced in the article.
Also see this AT&T video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcrjTFDUt9E
And for more on pole farms: https://youtu.be/tkfEBX87NX0
Folder PATENTS: Telephones and Components
Lists of patents by topic that have proven useful in telephony research.
This is a group project and is under development. Send lists for your area of research - e.g. sets, dials, receivers, transmitters, prototypes, accessories, etc.
Folder Ralph Meyer References
Ralph Meyer's popular book, Old-Time Telephones is currently in its Third Edition. Revision history is here: http://pws.goeaston.net/oldtimetelephones
Articles by Ralph O. Meyer and Russell A. Flinchum
Bell, Watson, Soft Iron, and the Insight that Commercialized the Magneto Telephone (2020)
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9264835
Henry Dreyfuss and Bell Telephones (2017)
Folder Tales from Vienna
Born in the USA and currently living in Vienna, Austria, EU, TCI member Herbert Schwarz writes about a wide variety of telephone related topics. His topics include the Bell System of the 1960s, military telephone equipment, European outside plant and a few surprises along the way.
Folder Telephone Dials and Pushbuttons by Stanley Swihart
Updates Wanted. This monumental two-volume reference work was started as a planned 32-page book with mainly photos and little text. Great collector interest gave it a life of its own, growing to 584 pages and with over 150 contributors in 22 countries. It covers not only the dials themselves, but also their use – including the evolution of numbering schemes in different parts of the world. Needless to say, info was still pouring in at publication time in 2010.
TCI members will find George Howard’s review in the July 2010 issue of Singing Wires, highlighting many of the book’s strengths. Unfortunately, Stanley’s passing eliminated plans for a second edition.
In the years since its publication, contributors and collectors have wanted to fill some of the remaining gaps and add their comments, corrections and related original research.
This page provides a place to post additional material that may be helpful to readers. Send your comments!
While comments in any reasonable format are welcome, a Word document is provided as a guideline for those who are submitting primarily errata or minor changes.
Documents
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Recent Contributors
Thanks for new documents from Bruce Patterson, Jon Kolger, Paul Ivester, Len Hicken, Paul Fassbender, Fred Haynes, Kurt Rudolph, Wade ("Kellogg KITT"), the Connections Museum, Rick Walsh, Jeff Lamb, Jeremy Walters, Mark Cuccia, Alan David, Harry Joseph, Charlie Terry, Karl Brose, Dennis Hock, Tim Griffin, Remco Enthoven, and Steve Cichorsky.
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