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Ma Bell Telephone

many Americans growing up in the 1940’s, 1950’s, and 1960’s, “Ma Bell” simply meant the telephone company.

“Ma Bell” was the nickname for the Bell System, headed by AT&T (American Telephone & Telegraph). It provided telephone service to most of the United States for decades.

It had a certain charm to it. Those exchange names gave neighborhoods their own identity, and many people who grew up in that era can still remember the first telephone number they ever had.

What was it like?

If you had a telephone in your home in the 1950s, chances are it came from Ma Bell.

• You didn’t buy the telephone. You rented it from the phone company.
• The phone company owned the telephone, the wires outside your house, and the switching equipment that connected calls.
• If something broke, a Bell System repairman came to fix it.
• Many people knew their local telephone operators by name.

The telephones

Most homes had:

• A black rotary dial telephone
• One phone for the entire household
• The phone placed in a central location, often in the hallway or kitchen

Color telephones became popular later in the 1950’s:

• Pink
• Turquoise
• Beige
• Yellow
• White

Having an extra extension phone in the bedroom was considered a luxury.

Making calls

• Local calls were usually simple and inexpensive.
• Long-distance calls cost more, so families often kept them short.
• Many people placed long-distance calls on Sundays when rates were lower.

When you picked up the receiver, you heard a dial tone, dialed each number with the rotary dial, and waited for the connection.

Telephone operators

Operators played an important role.

They:

• Helped place long-distance calls
• Gave directory assistance
• Assisted during emergencies

In earlier years, operators physically connected calls using switchboards.

Telephone etiquette

Parents often reminded children:

• “Don’t tie up the phone.”
• “Answer politely.”
• “Keep long-distance calls brief.”

Since there was usually only one family phone, everyone knew everyone else’s business!

The Bell System family

The Bell System included:

• AT&T – the parent company
• Western Electric – made the telephones and equipment
• Bell Laboratories – conducted research and invented new technologies
• Regional Bell companies that provided local service.

The end of Ma Bell

For most of the twentieth century, Ma Bell dominated telephone service in America. But after years of antitrust cases, the Bell System was broken apart in 1984, creating several regional companies known as the “Baby Bells.”

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Instead, many communities used telephone exchange names. The first two letters of the exchange name corresponded to numbers on the rotary dial.

For example:

• MUrray Hill 5-9975 became 685-9975
• PEnnsylvania 6-5000 became 736-5000
• KLondike 5-1212 became 555-1212
• PLaza 2-2434 became 752-2434

People would actually say the exchange name aloud:

“You can reach me at MUrray Hill 5-9975.”

The famous song “PEnnsylvania 6-5000” by the Glenn Miller Orchestra was based on the telephone number of New York City’s Hotel Pennsylvania.

Area codes technically existed after 1947, but they were used primarily by telephone operators for long-distance calls. Most people never dialed them themselves.

By the late 1950s and into the 1960s, Direct Distance Dialing allowed customers to place their own long-distance calls, and area codes gradually became more familiar. Eventually, exchange names disappeared and were replaced by the all-number system we use today.

So, if you lived in the 1950s, you probably wouldn’t have said:

“Call me at Gilbert 4-2187.”

or many Americans growing up in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, “Ma Bell” simply meant the telephone company.

“Ma Bell” was the nickname for the Bell System, headed by AT&T (American Telephone & Telegraph). It provided telephone service to most of the United States for decades.