Descriptive Circular Multiple Switch Board (1 results)

Softcover. Condition: Very good. Large octavo, 16pp., plus folding illustration at rear. A very good copy in the original printed wrappers, with some splitting at the spine, and a few nicks, but overall sound. The folding plate is in excellent condition. It shows a detailed image of the "Multiple Switch Board for Indianapolis." In 1881, just two years before this pamphlet was produced, Alexander Graham Bell purchased the Western Electric Company, which scholars have described as a crucial step in the standardization of telephone technology and equipment. Just a few years earlier, telephone conversations could only be had between rented pairs of phones, attached by a line that had no way to connect to other telephones. The switchboard allowed for operators to manually move connections between lines so that anyone with a telephone could call anyone else with a telephone-at least locally-and the technology rapidly improved from then on. Quite scarce, with none in the auction record, and just two separately catalogued listings in OCLC (NYHS, Duke).