America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940The telephone looms large in our lives, as ever present in modern societies as cars and television. Claude Fischer presents the first social history of this vital but little-studied technology—how we encountered, tested, and ultimately embraced it with enthusiasm. Using telephone ads, oral histories, telephone industry correspondence, and statistical data, Fischer's work is a colorful exploration of how, when, and why Americans started communicating in this radically new manner. Studying three California communities, Fischer uncovers how the telephone became integrated into the private worlds and community activities of average Americans in the first decades of this century. Women were especially avid in their use, a phenomenon which the industry first vigorously discouraged and then later wholeheartedly promoted. Again and again Fischer finds that the telephone supported a wide-ranging network of social relations and played a crucial role in community life, especially for women, from organizing children's relationships and church activities to alleviating the loneliness and boredom of rural life. Deftly written and meticulously researched, America Calling adds an important new chapter to the social history of our nation and illuminates a fundamental aspect of cultural modernism that is integral to contemporary life. |
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activities adults advertising Alexander Graham Bell American Antioch Ledger Appendix AT&T AT&THA auto Bell Canada Bell System Bell Telephone Bell's blue-collar blue-collar workers Census Chapter claimed competition consumer consumption junction conversations costs County cultural customers Depression device directories early estimates etiquette example extralocal families farm farmers Field Research Corporation Figure friends households in-town included income increased independent interviewees largely living long-distance Marin County merchants modern neighbors newspapers operators out-of-town Palo Alto percent percentage perhaps PHOTO PT&T rates regression reported residential telephones residents rural telephony sample San Francisco San Rafael social Statistics subscribers suggests switchboard tele telegraph telephone and automobile telephone companies telephone diffusion telephone industry telephone numbers telephone service telephone subscription telephone's Theodore Vail three towns tion TPCM U.S. Bureau urban users white-collar white-collar workers woman born women workers working-class World War II