North American Data Communications Museum
- Remember the Teletype machines of long ago? Western Electric and
the Bell System played a major part in this communications product.
Telephone numbers used to begin with two letters, which were
an abbreviation for a word. An example is "MUrray Hill"; it was the name of the
telephone central office exchange in New Jersey where Bell Laboratories was/is
located. This website project is an attempt to assemble information about
exchange names from a lot of widely spread original sources.
Your source for information on the Internet for the Welcome
to the Space Age!
Telephone Tribute
- Former sister site on general telephone history. This site has not
been updated in a few years, so some links may not be functioning.
Omaha Works -
This website was crafted for the former
employees, friends, family members and interested people about the proud
employees who were employed by the "BEST IN CLASS" manufacturing
facilities of the old "Ma Bell" (Western Electric, AT&T, Lucent and Avaya)
- {Administrator's point of view}
Presidential Telephones of the United States
- Former sister site on general telephone history. This site has not
been updated in a few years, so some links may not be functioning.
Central Office Buildings
- collection of Telephone Central Office Building Pictures. This is a collection
of central office buildings throughout the United States and elsewhere.
Communication: A Film
Lesson in General Science / Development of Communication - 1927
Communications and Our
Town - 1947
The Big Bounce - 1960
(The story of the Echo communications satellite project)
We Offer Personalized One-On-One
Service!
Call Us Today at (651) 787-DIAL (3425)
Books &
References
The following books and other reference
material are highly recommended for additional information on the Bell
System and related telecommunications topics. There are some of these
books and other documentation in electronic archive format on this website
(shown as hyperlinks below).
The following books are available from
Amazon.com, Inc. Use the Amazon
search box to inquire on availability.
"Rape of Ma
Bell" and "A Voice in the Wilderness" (link leads to
book reviews)
"The Phone Book - What the telephone
company would rather you not know" by J. Edward Hyde. Henry Regnery
Company - Chicago. Copyright 1976. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number
76-6275. This book is out of print but you may find it in used book stores
or Amazon.com. Gives a dark view of Ma Bell but interesting reading
nonetheless.
"Manufacturing the Future - A History
of Western Electric" by Stephen B. Adams and Orville R. Butler.
Excellent book! I bought mine on eBay. Published in 1999 by Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 0-521-65118-2 (hardcover).
"Telephone - The First Hundred Years"
- The Wondrous Invention that Changed a World and Spawned a Corporate Giant.
By John Brooks. First Published in 1976 by Harper & Row, Publishers.
ISBN 0-06-010540-2.
"Bell Labs - Life in the Crown Jewel"
by Narain Gehani. First published in 2003 by Silicon Press.
"Bell Labs, the greatest research lab
of the 20th century, is going through difficult times. The current
events at Lucent will have a deep impact on Bell Labs. Gehani talks
about Bell Labs with an insider's perspective. He has seen Bell Labs
during its best times and during its difficult days. He was at Bell
Labs during the monopoly and post monopoly days, and when Lucent was
doing great and during its difficult times.
Gehani’s Bell Labs book is the first
book that tells the story of this very famous organization. Bell Labs
is part of the heritage of the many of the current and past companies
in the telecom industry. People associated with the telephone
companies will find this book great reading, historical information of
their employer’s glorious past, will get an understanding of the
workings of this great institution, how the AT&T divestiture affected
it, and the challenges faced by it now.
Gehani's story of America's national
treasure and corporate crown jewel will keep you riveted to reading
about a way of life possibly gone forever. To read the book
description, click
HERE.
Technologies of Freedom
Ithiel de Sola Pool, 1983
Cambridge: Belknap/Harvard
The Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T
Steve Coll, 1986
New York: Atheneum
Signals: The Telephone and Beyond (Revised edition)
John R. Pierce and Michael A. Noll
San Francisco: Freeman
America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940
Claude S. Fischer, 1992
Berkeley: University of California Press
The Telecommunications Revolution: Past, Present and Future
Sapolsky, Crane, Neuman, and Noam, 1992
London & New York: Routledge
The American Telegrapher: A Social History, 1860 - 1900
Edwin Gabler, 1988
New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press
The Biggest Company On Earth: A Profile of AT&T
Sonny Kleinfield, 1981
New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
I'm Sorry, The Monopoly You Have Reached Is Not In Service. . .
K. Aubrey Stone, 1973
New York: Ballantine/Grassroots
Monopoly
Joseph C. Goulden, 1968
New York: Putnam
In One Man's Life: Being Chapters from the Personal and Business
Career of Theodore N. Vail
Albert B. Paine, 1921
New York: Harper
Disconnecting Bell: The Impact of the AT&T Divestiture
Harry M. Shooshan II (Editor), 1984
Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press
The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier
Bruce Sterling, 1992
New York: Bantam
The First Amendment in the Information Age
Joel M. Bolstein, 1987
Washington, D.C.: Freedom of Expression Foundation & The Media
Institute
The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier
Howard Rheingold, 1993
Menlo Park, CA: Addison Wesley
The Intelligent Network Task Force Report
Barbara O'Connor, et al., 1988
San Francisco: Pacific Bell Consumer Affairs
American Tel. & Tel.,
The Story of a Great Monopoly,
by Horace Coon, Longmans, Green and Co., New York, 1939.
AT&T -- The Story of
Industrial Conquest, by N. R.
Danielian, The Vanguard Press, New York, 1939.
The Telephone in a
Changing World, by Marion May
Dilts, Longmans, Green and Co., New York, 1941.
Communications in the
World of the Future, by Hal Hellman,
M. Evans and Company, New York, 1969.
Alexander Graham Bell, by Catherine
MacKenzie, Houghton Mifflen Co., Boston and New York, 1928.
The Bell Telephone
System, by Arthur W.
Page, Harper & Brothers, New York and London, 1929.
In One Man's Life,
Biography of Theodore N. Vail, by Albert
Bigelow Paine, Harper & Brothers, New York and London, 19?9.
Beginnings of
Telephony, by F. L.
Rhodes, Harper & Brothers, New York and London, 1929.
Views on Public
Questions, by Theodore N.
Vail, privately printed, 1917.
For Noteworthy Public
Service, The Theodore N. Vail National Awards,
published by the Bell System, New York, 1950.
Exploring Life, The
Autobiography of Thomas A. Watson, by D. Appleton
and Company, New York and London, 1926.
The Story of
Telecommunications by George Oslin -
still in print by
the publisher Mercer University Press. Oslin was the P.R. man for
Western Union for a long time, and wrote the book when he was 92 years
old and had done a lot of research into telegraph history. The book
suffers from bad editing, but the middle section especially is
excellent and contains many interesting stories about Western Union
and AT&T.
One Man's Century, also
by Oslin, also still in print by M.U. Press. More of an
autobiography, but contains a number of interesting W.U. stories.
The Telegraph by Lewis
Coe, still in print by McFarland & Co. This is a good complement to
the Oslin book as the two books tell different stories about the same
topic. Seems to be written more from a Postal Telegraph Co.
perspective.
Wireless Radio and The
Telephone and its Several Inventors, both also by Lewis Coe, also from
McFarland & Co.
Old Wires and New Waves
by Harlow. This is an out-of-print and hard to find 1936 book on
the history of electrical communication. Your library may have it.
Principles of Electricity
Applied to Telephone and Telegraph Work - an AT&T training book, out
of print but readily available through the used book network such as
http://www.abebooks.com There are several
editions: 1938, 1953, 1961 especially.
A History of Engineering
and Science in the Bell System - also readily available through ABE
Books. There are several volumes, which the booksellers don't always
make clear.
Engineering and
Operations in the Bell System - several printings - ABE Books -
hardly a word about TTY, but otherwise a good description of the Bell
System, when there was a Bell System.
American Telegraphy and
Encyclopedia of the Telegraph; Systems, Apparatus, Operation by William
Maver Jr. This is an old (1912) book that was recently reprinted by
Lindsay Publications. Still available.
Printing Telegraph
Systems and Mechanisms, by H. H. Harrison. The state of the art in
1923. ABEBooks has, but they are expensive. Try your library.
Teleprinter Switching by
Rossberg and Korta. Mostly about European Telex, but some coverage
of other systems. ABE Books.
The Birth and Babyhood of
the Telephone - lecture by Thomas A. Watson ABEbooks
TECHNICAL BOOKS
Telecommunications Primer
G. Langley, 1983
London: Pitman
Understanding Communications Systems
Don L. Cannon and Gerald Luecke
Dallas: Texas Instruments
