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The
American
Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) was founded as part of the
Bell Telephone System to build a nationwide wired, long distance
communications service. When this advertisement was printed in a 1917 issue of
The Saturday Evening Post magazine, many American households still did
not have a telephone installed, and most of those that did subscribed to "party
line" hookups. Party lines were a service sharing agreement whereby multiple
users were connected to the same telephone number and agreed to share the line.
The upside was a discounted phone bill, but the downside was the any other
member of the "party" could listen in on your conversation. I remember back in
the 1960s when our house had a party line. My sister and I (both preteens) would
sometimes carefully pick up the phone receiver and listen in hopes of
eavesdropping on a neighbor's
 business. I don't recall ever getting caught or
even doing it often. Those were the days when all the mothers on the block were
housewives and were home all day, so the opportunity for mischief was not as
great as with latchkey kids of today. By the late 1960s, my father's position as
the manager of the classified advertising department of The Evening Capital, in
Annapolis, Maryland, required that he be available to take phone-in ads from
people in the evening, so at that point we had private service (I assume the
company paid for it). Come to think of it, I also remember my sister and I being
taught to take down ad details from callers, thereby giving my father a break
from the unpaid overtime.
Note in the photograph that the president at the time was Woodrow Wilson,
steamboats docked at the nations' ports, and airplanes had two (or more) wings.
American Telephone and Telegraph Advertisement
 Answering
the Nation's Call
In this "supreme test" of the nation, private interests must be subordinated
to the Government's need. This is as true of the telephone as of all other instrumentalities
of service. The draft for war service which has been made upon the Bell System is
summarized in a recent Government report. Government messages are given precedence
over commercial messages by means of 12,000 specially drilled long distance operators
all over the country. The long distance telephone facilities out of Washington have
been more than doubled. Special connections have been established between all military
headquarters, army posts, naval stations and mobilization camps throughout the United
States. More than 10,000 miles of special systems of communication have been installed
for the exclusive use of Government departments. Active assistance has been given
the Government by the Bell System in providing telephone communications at approximately
one hundred lighthouses and two hundred coast guard stations. Communication has
been provided for the National Guard at railroad points, bridges and water supply
systems. A comprehensive system of war communication will be ready at the call of
the Chief Signal Officer, and extensive plans for cooperation with the Navy have
been put into effect with brilliant success.
As the war continues, the demands of the Government will increase. And the public
can help us to meet the extraordinary conditions by putting restraint on all unnecessary
and extravagant use of the telephone.
American Telephone and Telegraph Company and Associated Companies
One Policy One System Universal Service
Posted July 17, 2019
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