Research Catalog

Title

Once upon a telephone : an illustrated social history / Ellen Stern and Emily Gwathmey.

Author

Stern, Ellen.

Publication

New York : Harcourt Brace, c1994.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Gwathmey, Emily Margolin.

Description

135 p. : col. ill.; 25 cm.

Summary

"The telephone rings. It jingles our psyches, jangles our nerves. We are seduced and soothed, rattled and betrayed by it. Wherever it is--on the desk or street corner, the high seas or highway, in our bathrooms or briefcases--it has, for a machine, an allure like no other. Once Upon a Telephone is a visual history of this indispensable and inescapable apparatus--with an emphasis on the days before 800s, 900s, voice mail, and FAX. Lavishly illustrated in full color with a wealth of twentieth-century ephemera--everything from movie stills to matchbooks--and including excerpts from a variety of literary sources, Once Upon a Telephone is a spirited tribute to operators, directories, phone booths, and, of course, the appliance itself. The evolution of telephony irreversibly altered conventions of modern romance and constructions of power; Once Upon a Telephone is the only work in existence to chronicle these changes in such a comprehensive and entertaining fashion."--Jacket.

Subject

• Telephone > History. > United States
• Telephone > United States > Anecdotes

Genre/Form

• Anecdotes
• History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 134-135).

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

"My God, it talks!" -- "Hello, Central!" -- Form and function -- The telephone book -- "Give me a ring" -- Love on the line -- "Don't call us, we'll call you" -- Gigglegiggle, talktalktalk -- The pay phone -- Bell's hell.

ISBN

0151000867 :

LCCN

^^^93050854^

OCLC

29668595

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library