The Telephone in America

The telephone was born in America and has reached its highest development in this country. Since 1876, when Alexander Graham Bell first talked successfully over his primitive telephone, a network of voice highways has grown up throughout the nation, linking more than fifty-four million telephones. About four-fifths of these are owned by the Bell System, which is a group of closely associated telephone companies, a research and development organization and a manufacturing and supply company, all headed by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. The other telephones are owned and operated by some 5,000 independent telephone companies and about 20,000 rural or farmer lines outside the Bell System but connecting with it.

Bell telephone service is home town service. Linked with thousands of other home town services, it makes a neighborhood of the nation. The company that furnishes your service is part of your community. Its operators, installers and other representatives are your neighbors. Some may be your friends or relatives. Its departments are managed by your fellow citizens—men and women who have come up through the ranks.

Nine out of every ten telephone calls handled by these home town people are local calls. The tenth call may go across the continent or across the ocean. But wherever the calls go, they travel by means of a marvelously ordered world of wires, cables, switchboards, dial equipment, radio and above all, with the help of people working together to serve the public.

This booklet gives you a personal glimpse of that world. It tells the story of the Bell System, but it should be remembered that much that is said here applies also to the other telephone companies that share with the Bell System the privilege and the responsibility of providing telephone service for the people of America.

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