The Evolution of A Telephone in Our Home

 Yesterday's blogpost reminded me of the phone I have known in my childhood. 

In the 1950's we had an old black phone with a rotary dial. I remember this phone with a thin neck that cradled the receiver which was itself thinner than the later models.  The rotary dial had a clear click click click sound when you dialed. I loved that sound. The later models were much quieter. I used to run my finger around and then as it went back to its' original position I would keep my finger there to feel how it found its original position. Dialing was fun for me and a marvel.

In the 1960's the phone company replaced the old phone with a more updated square model.  The rotary dial was much quieter. Not as much fun for me.

 

It was sometime in the early 1960's when I was a teenager I asked my parents for a "Princess Telephone". Prior to the introduction of the Princess phone in 1959, most households had only one telephone set, usually located in the living room or other central location. The princess phone's small size and lighted dial were designed to make attractive as a bedside extension and the Bell System marketed it as such. 

I want to say mine was turquoise blue but it could have been yellow. I can't remember now but I loved having my own phone (the number was the same as the family phone).

 Sometime later the family phone was updated again and instead of a rotary dial it was push button dialing.* I seem to remember this as the era when everything became pushbuttons including the car we had. You would push a button on the dash to go from park to drive, reverse etc.

*"From the 1970s onward, the rotary dial was gradually replaced by DTMF (dual-tone multi-frequency) push-button dialing, first introduced to the public at the 1962 World's Fair under the trade name "Touch-Tone". Touch-tone technology primarily used a keypad in the form of a rectangular array of push-buttons. Although no longer in common use, the rotary dial's legacy remains in the verb "to dial (a telephone number)".

 Our family moved from the Folsom Street home to our brand new home in Monterey Park in 1965. My bedroom had the Princess phone and there was a phone in my parents bedroom and downstairs by the kitchen was a new "wall phone".*

* " The wall telephone was invented by L M Ericsson. It is most often used in the kitchen counter and table. It is also popular in areas as basements or garages."