“How to Use a Dial Telephone” 1951.
I'm surprised to see a How-To like this dated to the 1950s, when I'd have thought rotary dials weren't exactly new tech, but @dduane suggested It might have been because small US communities still relied on party lines and switchboards, where a number, PEnnsylvania 6-5000 for instance...
...was asked for rather than dialled personally, and actually using a dial phone might be an unfamiliar experience.
Oddly enough, this How-To doesn't actually explain how to USE the dial (on another page, probably) so here's how.
UK dial left, US dial right, operating principal the same.
Lift the earpiece or handset, put a fingertip into the appropriate numbered hole on the dial, drag it around to the finger-stop, remove the finger and let the dial rotate back to start position.
(Don't force it, auto-rotation is what sends the number as a series of electrical pulses so forcing it confuses things. Voice of long-ago experience.)
Repeat for the remaining numbers, then speak when the call is answered. End the call by putting the earpiece / handset back in place.
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Aspects of outdated but still-in-memory social history fascinate me, partly because they were part of my life though now they seem to be museum exhibits, and also because various details are useful bits of info for fictional world-building.
For instance, in a small town or village it was common knowledge that the switchboard operator - not a government tapper, just a person you or your family might meet every day - could be listening to any phonecall, so sensitive subjects were avoided or worded with care.
Read on.
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I grew up with rotaries and the first I ever used - standing tiptoes on a chair - was one just like this wall-mounted contraption, which had been in my Grandad's grocery shop since about 1930, when his phone line was first connected.
Grandad was an earlier adopter. I've got a shop receipt stamp showing the phone number back then, which had only three digits. Numbers in the same town are now eight digits...
The "candlestick" phone (far more common in historical movies and TV dramas) had most of the same working telephone parts, but needed a table or desk to rest on and its connection box with bells mounted on a wall, whereas the wall-mount has this box built-in behind the dial and mouthpiece.
Also, since typical style of use involved two hands...
...if only to brace it on the table (they were top-heavy and could overbalance)...
...it was a lot less convenient for making notes or taking down orders.
NB an interesting little detail in that first photo - a sandglass egg-timer attached to the phone for timing calls.
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Writer Side-Note 1: the hooks for the earpiece have a spring. Take the earpiece off and it snaps up to make the connection, put the earpiece back and it drops down under the weight, breaking the connection.
I sometimes wonder (and should probably find out) if early phonership being higher in the US than across the Pond influenced why US light switches work the same way as the phone hook, up for on, down for off. UK / Irish ones are the opposite.
Certainly those hooks are why "pick up" means answering a call and "hang up" means ending it, even if nowadays both are done by tapping an on-screen icon.
Indeed, we still "dial" a number even though actual dials are long gone - unless they've been put back as an app, see below... :->
"Ringing off the hook" suggests a phone so busy that bits of it are jumping off - but also, that it's so busy it won't shut up even when disconnected.
In fact it would shut up if that happened, and gave rise to another phrase which nowadays has a slightly different origin and meaning.
Lifting the earpiece off its hook and putting it to one side without making a call meant anyone phoning the number would get a busy signal. Thus "off the hook" meant "can't be contacted", often with an implication of "doesn't want to be contacted."
Nowadays the phrase owes more to fishing than phones, so "off the hook" means "avoided a threat / got away" - though perhaps there's still a telephonic echo in "isn't caught". YMMV.
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Writer Side-Note 2: older phones didn't have a dial. Instead, lifting the earpiece made a connection (indicated AFAIK by a light) at the local "switchboard exchange", indicating that someone wanted to make a call.
The "telephonist" (usual term for working with an office network) or "operator" (usual term for working with a public network) would reply, find out which person (office) or number (public) the caller wanted to reach, and make the connection by hand.
The usual conversation went something like this:
"Hello, caller, which number do you require?"
"Mr Brandybuck's office, please," or "HOBbiton 3-5-7-9, please," or "Bywater police station, quickly!"
"Thank you, caller. One moment, please. Connecting you now... You're through."
The operator could also listen in to any conversation and, at small local exchanges where they weren't too busy and knew one or maybe both callers, they often did.
In fact and fiction this habit made them a useful source of gossip, information and evidence, and callers' awareness of it also meant that any "interesting" phonecall would be framed in guarded or oblique language which might sound a lot more suspicious than it really was.
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Whenever a caller in "Downton Abbey", "Peaky Blinders" or whatever rattles the hook of a phone up and down, it's because they're trying to get the operator's attention that bit faster by making the switchboard signal light blink.
Anyone who's pressed the call button on a lift several times to make it hurry up, even when that button's lit to show it's on the way, will know exactly what I mean. However, an old-style phone linked to an old-style switchboard might actually have had an effect. With lifts, not so much.
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Rotary phones got a lot sleeker as time went by...
...though they still had spring-loaded switches - those two little black nubbins - to open and close a connection. These too could be jiggled to "speed things up", though by this stage the exchange was usually automated so it was no more effective than prodding lift buttons.
Despite that, "picking up" and "hanging up" remained a fairly accurate description, especially with wall-mounted phones.
This style of phone, or at least their hand-set design, still provides the basis for phone icons in many / most smartphones.
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Rotary phones went out of style in favour of push-button designs, including cordless ones...
This carried over to mobile phones, first big...
...then not so big...
...then small, then smart and getting big again...
Smartphones also started with push-buttons before going over to touch-screens, and now what goes around comes around, with apps for those touchscreens to simulate both push-button and rotary phones.
To complete the retro experience there are (or were, anyway) vintage-phone charging docks with working handsets.
Install a rotary-dialler app in this, and it's back to the future.
Especially if there are cradle switches to jiggle so the cell connects faster...
:->
