The building was enlarged and continued as a Bell property into the 21st century. To handle dial-telephone calls, Bell constructed the Baker Exchange at 17 Jackson Street West in 1929. In the late 1990s, it became home to the Hamilton offices of the Labourers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), which preserved the building.īell’s 1913 Regent Exchange building still stands at 8 Main Street East. used the original Exchange building for its offices for a number of decades after 1919. In 1913, Bell moved into the large new Regent Exchange around the corner. The supposed innate “courtesy,” “patience” and “skillful hands” of these “Hello Girls,” as they were known, were considered key qualities for the job. To improve its public image, Bell soon started hiring women to operate the system. Originally, boys had been employed to handle the calls, but they were found to be too quick-tempered and rude to customers. Here, about “young lady operators” busily routed calls through the company’s modern multiple-magneto switchboard. The nerve centre of this new building was its large, second-floor operating room. The company’s first Hamilton office operated out of four cramped rooms on the top floor of the Hamilton Provident and Loan building, at the corner of King and Hughson Streets. As it expanded, the company was first renamed Connecticut Telephone, and then Southern New England Telephone in 1882.In 1878, Hamilton became home to the first telephone exchange in the British Empire. By 1880, the company had the right from the Bell Telephone Company to service all of Connecticut and western Massachusetts. The New Haven District Telephone Company grew quickly and was reorganized several times in its first years. Most of these businesses and listings such as physicians, the police, and the post office only eleven residences were listed, four of which were for persons associated with the company. By February 21, 1878, however, when the first telephone directory was published by the company, fifty subscribers were listed. The District Telephone Company of New Haven went into operation with only twenty-one subscribers, who paid $1.50 per month. While the switchboard could connect as many as sixty-four customers, only two conversations could be handled simultaneously and six connections had to be made for each call. The switchboard built by Coy was, according to one source, constructed of "carriage bolts, handles from teapot lids and bustle wire." According to the company records, all the furnishings of the office, including the switchboard, were worth less than forty dollars. Frost and Walter Lewis, who provided the capital, established the District Telephone Company of New Haven on January 15, 1878. On November 3, 1877, Coy applied for and received a franchise from the Bell Telephone Company for New Haven and Middlesex Counties. In this lecture, during which a three-way telephone connection with Hartford and Middletown was demonstrated, Bell first discussed the idea of a telephone exchange for carrying on business and trade. Coy was inspired by Alexander Graham Bell's lecture at the Skiff Opera House in New Haven on April 27, 1877. Coy designed and built the world's first switchboard for commercial use. The first commercial telephone exchange in the world began operations on Januin a storefront of the Boardman Building in New Haven. Before then, a property that no longer met NHL criteria was simply removed from the official list. *A formal dedesignation process was created in 1980. NPS Photo Site of the First Telephone Exchange New Haven, CT The New Haven District Telephone office and the first telephone exchange were located in the storefront with the awning.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |