telephone (artifact #19)

The Rural Telephone was common in the Ozarks of NW Arkansas.  The picture of the telephone and accessories are of those belonging to my father, Fred A. Doyle of Washington County, Arkansas.  I have personally used it many times.  The Telephone is original and in working order.  It was manufactured in Fayetteville, Arkansas by the Ramey Company.  The Ramey family used to live in my neck of the woods, near the Courtney family.  Ramey descendants still live in the area, and I know some of them.

Looking back to the past century, many things were built of wood, both for functionality and for the beauty of wood.  The Lord certainly knew that we would need building materials.  He made provision for his Creation and for us, his people.  Carriages were principally made of wood.  Automobiles were made with many wood parts such as the wheels, floorboards, reinforcing parts for the frames.  Many automotive electrical parts used wood.  The sparking devices were all housed in wooden boxes, in the early days of automobiles, and their construction were works of art.  The telephone shared fine cabinet craftsmanship with furniture.  It was designed and housed in a case, both for looks and functionality, much as quality household furniture.  There is a writing shelf, on the front, with a ledge where a pencil would roll to the front and be ready for taking notes.

Everything in that day was a single-wire direct-current (DC) based technology.  Every home had a ground rod driven into the earth, literally for earth ground to complete the circuit, the return path, as required by electrical devices.  Inside the case was a pair of telephone batteries.  Every hardware store had a stock of these tall batteries.  The single-wire line was strung onto white ceramic insulators, nailed to poles and trees, and was common to all telephones in the community.  The line was cleared of tree limbs that might encroach onto it and render the service unusable.

Usage of the rural telephone supplied the next best thing to being face to face talking with another person.  Conversations were no longer private, but a person did not have to travel to another location to talk to someone.  One could snoop on their neighbor’s conversations simply by lifting the receiver, as it was only a large party line.  Gossip traveled fast by the grape vine, but faster by the rural telephone.  Ms. Busy Body and Ms. Gossip A. Plenty were on the line when they heard the first ring, as though all rings were for them.  With a hand covering the mouthpiece and receiver to their ear, I suppose they looked much like a statue.

Lightning played havoc at times with the phone line.  Carbon blocks were added for protection, offering an electrical path for the extremely high voltage of lightning.  If one was around during a storm, he would open the knife switch, connecting to the telephone, to make the carbon arc blocks more inviting to lightning.  Of course, lightning has a mind of its own.  The photo shows these accessories; knife switch on the left, carbon blocks right.

The rotating hand-crank of the ringing device is on the right-hand side of the telephone. It generates a signal sent to every bell on the party line.  This high voltage is enough to deliver quite a jolt to anyone touching the outside line, but not enough to jump or arc across the lightning protection block.

Protocol worked like this :  When a person wanted to make a call, the receiver was lifted, from its hook on the left side of the telephone, to see if the line was busy and, if so, a wait was required to make a call.  To say a phone is "off the hook" means the same thing these days, that the phone is busy.  If the line was clear of conversation, the next step was to ring the desired house.  As there was no number, everyone had his own combination of rings for identification.  Mrs. Smith’s phone was perhaps a long and a short ring and Mr. Martin’s house was a short and two longs.

With the receiver off the hook, one would crank the handle by perhaps one revolution for a short ring and two revolutions for a long, pausing between rings.  You could see and hear the bell ring on the top-front of the case.  Perhaps this will give a person an understanding of the term bells-and-whistles as applied to most electronic equipment of today.  A person could at least count the bells and whistles and have a clear understanding of their usage.  Just by observing, you were an expert in the use of the telephone.  There was no manual to read and no programming required, neither was there a support line for the user.

A moveable ear piece (the receiver) was held to the ear to hear the other party speak, and one spoke into the mouthpiece, mounted on the front of the case.  The mouthpiece was fitted with a swivel so that a person could adjust the height to that of the person using the telephone.  When the conversation was completed, the ear piece was placed back on the hook.  Its weight would lower the hook, opening a switch to cut off and save the battery when the telephone was not in use.

The telephone system of today, I believe, has gone through more changes than any device known.  Telephone systems are commonly connected around the world for communication devices from voice communications to computers, and beyond what many people can comprehend.  There is fierce competition and political wrangling within the communications business.

While working for AT&T Long Lines in 1961, I was asked if I knew what a “short” was in Telco language.  Of course I did and spoke up because even then the short (ring) had been forgotten.  As it turned out the term “short” had a new meaning and was applied to testing a telephone line to determine its’ length.  Technology was already on a fast roll.

I once saw over the entrance to a theme park in Oklahoma a sign that read, “From Indian arrows to atoms in less than 50 years.”  A good parallel to that sign would be, “From rural telephone to video phone  in less than 50 years.”

Charles D. Doyle  5/20/03