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Page 14 The Antique Shoppe January, 2019

“SMACK DAB IN THE MIDDLE”

Design Trends of the Mid-20th Century

By Donald-Brian Johnson

This Month’s Feature—

“Ring-A-Ding-Ding: Something to talk about: telephone costume jewelry pin, $15-20

Classic Phone

Collectibles” through the closed kitchen door: “We are having dinner. Get off that phone.
Now!”
Long before party lines however, there was Alexander Graham Bell,
Once upon a time, telephones had dials. inventor of the telephone. Bell patented his creation in 1876. The “electrical
And operators. And cords. speech machine”, (his name for it), was the first to successfully and reliably
They didn’t take pictures. They didn’t transmit multiple voice messages over a single wire, by initially transmitting
send text messages. For most of the a current. By 1918, there were over ten million Bell System telephones in use
twentieth century, telephones were just for across the United States.
making calls. Or receiving them. Where you The earliest telephones were unwieldy wooden cabinet affairs, their size
made or received those calls was dependent necessary to hold the wiring. An attached mouthpiece on the box allowed
on where in the house your phone jack the caller to speak; a separate earpiece on a cord was necessary to hear the
was located. You placed a phone, and there response. Phone calls were placed through a live operator, a practice that, in
A wooden cabinet phone from the it stayed; complementing the décor was some remote locales, continued well into the 1960s.
early 1900s. 24” h., $75-100.
The “rotary dial” made its debut in 1904. Another major 1904 upgrade:
the “French Phone” which finally combined the transmitter and receiver in
a prime consideration. For a single handset. The streamlined “Candlestick Phone” attracted consumer
the bedroom, a sleek pink interest from the 1890s into the 1920s, but the most ubiquitous phone design
“Princess” model. For the of the mid-twentieth century was the rotary dial desk set (aka “Model 500”),
office desk, a practical black popularized by Western Electric.
“Rotary 500”. For the kitchen, The first 500s, introduced in 1950, came only in black. Best remembered,
a handy red wall-mount however, are those of the 1960s and ‘70s, available in a rainbow of hues,
“Trimline”. such as aqua, yellow, pink, green, and fire-engine red. The “500” was the
Mobile phones? Well, if brainchild of industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss, who continued to update
you were a patron of New the design to suit the times. His curved “Princess” phone was ideal for the
York’s “21 Club”, there were boudoir; the sleek “Trimline” was a must-have for areas with limited wall or
obliging waiters on hand to surface space.
rush a phone to your table, and In 1962, “Touch-Tone” phones made their first appearance, and
plug it right in. Back on earth by the late 1960s rotary phones were on their way out, supplanted
though, a “mobile phone” was
dependent on the length of by the ease of push-button dialing. Phone collectors collect. . .
your telephone cord. If you well, phones, but that’s not where
were lucky, the wall and coiled the conversation ends. Related
receiver cords of your kitchen telephone memorabilia is equally
phone were long enough so collectible.
that, when a personal call
came in, you could escape Continued on Page 30
into the dining room and In pre-mobile days, phone privacy was hit-
shut the door, dragging the and-miss. That situation was captured by
phone along with you. Many George Hughes, in a cover illustration for
The Saturday Evening Post,
November 19, 1949. $10-15.

a phone-addicted bobby-soxer
found this a welcome respite
from over-inquisitive ears.
Of course, if you were on
a “party line”, you ran the risk
of neighbors listening in. But
most teens chattered bravely Another view of the telephone operator:
on, until Dad’s voice boomed Lily Tomlin’s “Ernestine” album,
“This Is A Recording”, 1971. $10-15.

Candlestick phone salt-and-pepper pair, with souvenir Who’s tying up that phone? Klumpe fabric doll depicting a
decal, “Floating Bridge—Seattle”. 4” h., $5-7 pr. phone-obsessed bobbysoxer, 1950s. $50-75.