Thursday, August 30, 2007

Time of Day operator, April 1937

A Time of Day operator and an exchange name: Ah! Telephony!

I clipped this "Flashback 1937" item from the Chicago Tribune some time ago. With Time of Day service vanishing, I thought I should share this bit of the past here. (Click for a larger view.)

Related posts
No Time of Day in LA
Telephone exchange names
MOre EXchange NAme NOstalgia
Mike Hammer's machine
"This is the operator speaking"
All "dowdy world" posts (via Pinboard)

comments: 2

Anonymous said...

When I was an undergrad at the University of Illinois, I remember that the Time of Day service was provided by Busey Bank (you always got a plug for some financial service like free checking before you heard what time it was). We all referred to the owner of the recorded voice as Lucy Busey.

Michael Leddy said...

Here's it a bank too, with an ever-lengthening spiel for bank services prefacing the time.