Telephone History Interviews

INTERVIEWS

Summary of Interviews with Diane Schoelles, Moreno Valley, CA
October and November 2001

Q: You were born during the "baby boom" of the 1950's and 1960's. What do you remember about the telephone?

A: My first memory of the telephone is from 1964 when we moved to Anaheim, California. My mother asked me to look up my aunt's number and I thought it was strange that her number had a name in front of it. Our number was just 7 digits - hers was OXFord-something. I had to have my mom explain that to me. Then, I started asking lots of questions that she couldn't answer like "Why isn't there a Q or Z?" and "If 6 means O, then what does 0 mean?" (Laughs)

Q: Did the phone change much in the last 50 years?

A: We had a black, rotary dial wall phone in our house. About the mid 1960's, my sister and I begged and begged for a princess phone. These phones were slimmer and came in bright colors. My mom never broke down and got one, but she did get rid of the old phone about 1970.

I remember getting our first push button phone. Everyone on the street came over to "ooh" and "aah" about it. And, of course, everyone had to make a phone call from it.

Disneyland had a phone booth of the future in Tomorrowland where you sat in a plush phone booth and spoke to the wall. This was supposed to be a big thing and we got a kick out of calling home each time we went there (we only lived about ¼ mile from the Park and went there many times each year). The speaker quality was horrible and we ended up shouting at the box! I learned not to like speakerphones because of that.

Phones gradually did more and more things - like caller ID, message answering, call waiting, conference calling, redialing, and number memory. They also got smaller and cordless where the signal from the handset was sent by radio waves to a base station.

Q: When did you get your first cell phone?

A: Mobile phones became available because of satellite technology in the 1960's. In 1984, my husband got a mobile phone that came with a separate battery pack. It weighed about 10 pounds and you could only get about 3 hours of time from the battery. They were so big because it took more power to reach the "cell". There were very few cells and the area each cell covered was very large. Today, it takes very little power to make a cell phone call and the batteries last an average of 36 hours, but I've heard of batteries that will last 60 hours. The phone was so large that it was a pain to carry around and the call quality was pretty bad at times, but he kept it until about 1986. He got a smaller phone about then, but it still weighed about a pound. It was smaller and looked like the handset of a desk phone with the battery attached to the back. All you could do with it was make calls. It had no memory for phone numbers, no messages, no games - none of the things on cell phones today. Cell and mobile telephones now also double as pagers, internet news boards, address books, and have games to keep the user busy when he is not using the telephone for anything else.

Q: You were an office worker from 1975 and trained many people as a manager. What equipment did you use and how hard was it to learn?

A: I think I had an advantage over people who had been in business for many years. I was a media and video aide in Junior and Senior High School and learned not to be afraid of small appliances. Everything we did at my first job (general office clerk) from bookkeeping to calendaring appointments to banking was done manually. The machines to make life easier began to appear just as I was entering the business field, so I had no choice but to learn how to use them. I know people who resisted the "new technology" and kept doing things the old way because they didn't want to be bothered or thought that the new equipment was a passing fad.

The first machine I used that was telephone related was the Teletype machine. The Teletype machine was a type of original e-mail and facsimilie machine rolled into one. This was in 1975 and they had been around for about 30 years. It looked like a very large typewriter with a separate paper strip roll and telephone attached to the side. You would type what you wanted onto the strip of paper which was punched with holes, then feed the strip back into the machine, dial a teletype phone number, and send the message. The machine was very difficult to use because the keys had to be pushed way down and making corrections to the tape was time consuming. A good teletype operator had perfect typing skills and made very few mistakes. A similar machine is used today to help the hearing impaired and deaf communicate by telephone, but it is easier to use.

The facsimile or fax machine became popular about the mid 1980's, but they had been around for about 30 years before that. The paper was a slick, heat and light sensitive paper that even picked up fingerprints from a warm hand. You would feed your letter into the top of the machine, dial another fax machine's telephone number, and press start after hearing the "go" tone (a beep). Sometimes the operator would dial a regular phone number by mistake. The receiving machine would transfer your letter to the heat paper and print it out. The paper had to be kept in a sealed box and if you wanted to keep the fax copy for a long time, you had to make a photocopy of it since it faded. Now fax machines used regular printer paper and laser technology. Some fax machines are also computer printers and mini-copiers. Some print in color.

About 1993, the company I worked for installed teleconferencing equipment. We had to place a large satellite dish on the roof and hook up special cameras, microphones and a computer box to relay the signals. It wasn't difficult to use, but it was very expensive, so only executive management got scheduled to use it. Later, the personnel department would hold training conferences where a whole room of people would learn about subjects like company orientation, diversity, and review and counseling procedures. The vice president or a department manager back East would teach the class from their video room so they didn't have to fly to the West Coast. The problem with video conferencing is the time delay (about ¼ second) makes the conversation jerky, and very few people actually like having an audience. The company had to train people for public speaking because of this and only 3 people in the building knew how to set up a conference call. Video conferencing and photo phones never became a "must have" tool for business because many people do not like being on camera. The telephone allows people to hide behind the receiver and be unknown to the other person. Video conferencing allows everyone within the cameras eye to see and hear the people on the other end.

The largest time saving device was the personal computer. But, the PC wasn't just all of a sudden here - we had several large computers installed to do bookkeeping, payroll, and product pricing in 1980. We had a separate machine called a Word Processor that did the correspondence. About four years later in 1984, we could dial a telephone number from the Word Processor and connect with another Word Processor to send documents electronically. This was helpful when the document was 60 pages or more. The secretary I worked with on the other end had a very difficult time understanding how to do this and would get very frustrated. She retired about 2 months after the Word Processor was put in because "the world is traveling faster than I want to go." I think she was about 64 years old. Gradually, the computers and diskettes got smaller, and the Internet and e-mail came into being. The technology got easier to use, too, so it wasn't as difficult to train people.

Q: Were there any other changes to telephones that you can remember?

A: My mother was a PBX Switchboard operator for a bank for many years. This was an old fashioned "the call comes into the switchboard operator, she transfers it to the right extension." Most switchboards like this in the 1970's were used by companies to transfer calls within a single building. The small company I worked for in 1975 had 4 incoming telephone numbers and an automatic switchboard that was about 4 feet wide and 6 feet tall. This was to service a main console and 10 extensions. Before I retired in 1999, the company I worked for had over 400 separate telephones, 50 fax machines, and 300 personal computers. The switchboard for all of this was no larger than the one from the small company.

800 numbers also became very popular. These were incoming lines where a customer could call you and they didn't have to pay for the call - you did. Customers liked this. You could request an 800 number that was your last name, your business name, or a product - like 1-800-AIRLINE to make a plane reservation. The letters Q and Z were added to the 7 and 9 keys to take in the new naming of telephone numbers.

Q: Do you like the phone or dislike the phone?

A: I think the phone is a wonderful timesaving device. I have used it thousands of times to do things in a few minutes that would have taken my grandmother days to finish. People can purchase goods, make travel arrangements, research school projects, send mail, leave messages, and get information that was only available to a few people a few years ago. It can also save lives. I have also had to make 9-1-1 calls because of automobile accidents to call for help. And in business, the telephone is probably the one device that helped business grow so fast. You can reach more people quicker. I think someone once said that if you wanted to connect two people who have never met, all you had to do was make 5 phone calls because each of those people would know someone, who would know someone you wanted to speak to. Our small town has become a global town.

On the other hand, the telephone is a pain. It interrupts you when you want to be alone (like when you're trying to sleep, take a shower, or relax). Salesmen and telemarketing companies use the phone to sell items that they would have had to sell door-to-door about 30 years ago, and they call at all times of the day and night. There are now laws that state when companies call sell over the phone, and that they have to take you off their list if you ask to be taken off. Many people I know put an answering machine on their telephone lines so they can listen to who is calling before they decide to pick up the telephone. Telephone companies also offer services for a telephone to display the telephone number of the incoming call (Caller ID). A person can just look at the telephone display, decide whether that ID is someone they know and want to talk to, then decide whether they want to answer the call.

I think the telephone has actually made life more complicated, also. It used to be that you could just pick up the phone and make a call and be connected. Now, you might get a telephone system that asks you to press numbers to get to an extension, which has more numbers to press to get to another department, which has more numbers to press to get to a person, who usually isn't there and you have to leave a voice message. You can get lost in phone system hell. Phones also do more things. You need to know how to program your phone's numbers into the address book in the phone; how to work the games if you want to play them; how to dial up the internet to get your voice mails; how to keep your calendar. All very convenient, but all very confusing. The phone has saved many hours of time and made it possible to do many things at the same time. This is called "multi-tasking." You can eat your lunch, make a telephone call, type an e-mail into the computer, and carry on a meeting all at the same time. This also means that you are also expected to do four times the work that you would have been able to do 40 years ago. Many people get burned out by how much they need to know and how fast they need to work just to keep up with the changes. This is especially true for people who were born before the invention of many of the telephone byproducts, like facsimile machines, teletype machines, cell phones and computer systems. All of these save time, but make life harder because special skills need to be learned to use the equipment.

Summary of Interviews with George A. Schoelles, Murrieta, CA
October and November 2001

Q: You grew up on a dairy farm in upper-state New York during the 1920's and 1930's. What do you remember about the telephone?

A: That was during the depression and we didn't have one. My uncle Art had a phone. He would turn the crank on the side of the phone to ring the operator. When the operator answered he would tell her whohe wanted to call and she would ring that party. The phones of the depression days and even into the 50's utilized the party line system. If your ring was 4 short rings then you only answered when you heard 4 short rings. However you could listen to your neighbors conversation too. In an emergency you needed to ask who ever was on the line to relinquish it so you could call.

Before the telephone, information had to come to people from books and newspapers. People also had to rely on other people's memories and travel patterns. Now, people can find out anything anytime just by picking up the phone and dialing a number. If people did not know a telephone number, they could dial an operator to help them connect the call.

Q: When you were in the Navy from the 1940's to the 1960's, you traveled overseas often. Was it difficult to find telephones in other countries and make calls?

A: Overseas use of the phone I never arrempted as much of the time was war time.

Q: Did you have problems keeping up with the changes because of the telephone?

A: No. Advent of the newer phone system helped in many ways reducing the need to travel when a phone call would suffice.The ability to visit and order merchandise and for emergencies became much easier. I became a personal computer fan about 10 years ago, and many of the things I do on it today aren't possible without the telephone's invention. But this has created a new set of problems to be dealt with.

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