Telephone Tribute - (preview)

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Telephone Tribute consists of more than one hundred pages of telephone-related history, ranging from the earliest days in the 1870's through the demise of the 'Bell System' in 1983. In addition to the hundred-plus pages of material to read - many of which are very lengthy files - there are more than four hundred pictures which accompany the text. The exhibit includes many 'Bell System' documents from the past which have been scanned in for display on your screen. Pictures include inside looks at telephone central offices [telephone exchanges] of the past; they include a few dozen different telephone instruments in common use over the past century; they include pictures of Alex Bell, Tom Watson and others. A large section is devoted to payphones; Princess phones and other things.

Telephone Tribute includes schematics that have been scanned in for your viewing. It includes a very detailed history of AT&T written by its former chairman at the time of divestiture, Charles Brown. It includes a very detailed history of Western Electric, Bell of Canada and other telephone companies. It includes numerous links to other telephone-related sites including its 'sister site' also run by David Massey known as 'Bell System Memorial'.

Telephone Tribute includes human interest stories, and it includes numerous sound files (.wav files) of various sorts including ringing tones, dial tones, busy signals, intercept messages, and more. This exhibit consists of several years of work by David Massey in the process of collecting the things on display, and the cooperation of several people who loaned texts and images to him for the exhibit.

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