How very archaic! This graphic was posted a few years ago, but it bears repeating. It shows two telephone operators at their switchboard, laboring all day answering and forwarding phone calls. The photo can now be classified as an historic and ephemeral memory of an era that will never return. How I miss that olive green New Jersey Bell Telephone truck as he responded on the SAME DAY to a telephone problem. I am hearing that the home telephone as we know it is fast becoming as extinct as the passenger pigeon. Not in the Glover household, thank you. I still want to be able to press a butting the size of my fingers and listen on a phone that has a speaker that fits the ear, and a transmitter that lines up with my mouth. As you might imagine, yes, I have a cell phone, but only use it for a possible on the road emergency breakdown so I can call AAA.
I used to work for Ira Magod's answering service in the mid-1970s in the Broad Street Bank building. He had one of the few answering service setups and, believe it or not, the switchboards up in that office looked just like the ones on the photos. I believe they were sourced from the Bell operations so that they could be wired as extensions through the main system. they surely don't make phone equipment like they used to : )
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