From the 99% Invisible podcast series A History of the United States in 100 Objects, an episode about the Western Electric 500, the telephone that was once ubiquitous in United States households.
I still have a thrift-store 500, a gift from my kids, which I used in my office, where its loud ring would sometimes startle students. I sometimes invited curious students to call when they came in to talk, just so they could hear the ring if they’d never heard it. I had it turned up to eleven. Several years before I retired, we lost our office phones — a cost-cutting measure. Now the 500 sits in a closet, sometimes taken out to entertain grandkids.
Given the discussion in this episode of telephony past, with room-length extension cords and young people talking away for hours at a time, I would have liked to have heard something about Tin Can, the faux-landline telephone for kids that helps foster the skills of person-to-person communication across a distance. It’s a nifty device. As durable as the Western Electric 500? We’ll have to wait and see.
Related reading
All OCA telephone posts (Pinboard)
Monday, September 28, 2026
Western Electric 500
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I remember an old prank. Two boys would ride the bus with a paper bag. A ring, like a phone or an alarm clock, would sound. One boy would reach in, pull out the phone, put the handset to his ear, then say, "It's for you."
ReplyDeleteThat’s great. I hope the grownups were amused. (I would be.)
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