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. Telephone service companies were highly localized, and it was often unclear which existing community's exchange would have the capacity or desire to provide service to newly developed communities. Johnson cites the growth of Dallas, Texas, as a case in point. The Texas Telephone Company had the phone-service franchise in tiny Garland, Texas, some miles east of Dallas in the 1950s. But in the 1950s, Garland and Dallas began to grow toward each other. The Garland exchange, Johnson says,
had long rural lines providing service in the area squarely between the big city and the small town. It was an area which Bell [metropolitan telephone company] had refused to serve because of the small number of customers. However, as Dallas developed toward Garland, Bell moved in and at times removed Texas Telephone Company telephones, leaving the instrument...