Evolution of the Telephone

There seems wide agreement that the telephone from 1920 to 1960 represented a tool of social organization, and that the changing social roles of women were a part of that phenomenon. There is also evidence that in the 1920s, the telephone was conceived in monopolistic terms, as the province of control of the telephone company and not as a public utility. A telephone directory published in Clarendon, Texas, in 1920 declared that telephones "are for SUBSCRIBERS ONLY and MUST NOT BE USED BY NEIGHBORS. Non-subscribers impose on their neighbors and the telephone company, and delay good service by using our time and instruments." The transformation of telephone from proprietary technology to public utility may be the single most important change from 1920 to 1960, and women's access to and use of such technology may have been a critical component of the transformation. However, even by 1960, not all telephone service came under state regulatory jurisdiction. For example, in the years of suburban expansion between 1950 and 1960, "telephone availability was rarely, if ever considered" by land developers. Te

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"unanticipated" consumer category vis-a-vis telephone usage that emerged during the 1920s. One aspect of this was the entertainment value of the telephone. Sprunk's account of a North Dakota homemaker and teacher includes the fact that rural telephones in particular had party-line structures and that party lines were a strong source of entertainment for eavesdroppers well into the 1950s. If the telephone facilitated social intercourse, but it also made household management more efficient. Citing the 1920 census, Holt points to the role of the telephone in facilitating social change for rural folk: "Early in the century, Rural Free Delivery, telephones, more paved roads, and the technologies of radio and film reduced isolation. . . . It was a time, as [a] Kansas woman remarked, that farm women became 'different people' from those who had made do in prairie 'soddies.'" This does not mean that the telephone spawned a generation of feminists. For in pointing to the "drift from country life" and the dramatic change in the rural landscape brought on by such modern and progressive conveniences as the telephone, Holt adds that the ambitions of most young women of the period rested on becoming good wives and mothers of farmers. This
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Approximate Word count = 1446
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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