New SFO Museum Exhibition “Give Me a Ring: A Telephone Retrospective”

Submitted by the Event Organizer

New exhibition features an array of classic telephones from the late 1800s to the 1990s—from streamlined Art Deco telephones, payphones, and novel Picturephones of the 1960s to a 1958 Touch-Tone telephone prototype.

Alexander Graham Bell obtained the first patent on March 7, 1876, for an “apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically,” thereby securing the legal rights to the telephone’s development. Several days after receiving the patent, Bell and his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, made their first successfully transmitted message using a crude liquid transmitter in which Watson heard Bell exclaim, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” Telephone technology continued to grow at a rapid pace. Transcontinental telephone service was officially launched on January 25, 1915. Early telephones had no dials. Making a call required an operator at a switchboard to connect callers. By the 1930s, rotary dialing, which enabled users to make calls without the aid of an operator, prevailed.

In the era of cell phones, it seems difficult to imagine how revolutionary telephone technology was for its time. Landline telephones work by converting a caller’s voice into electrical signals that travel through wires to another telephone, which then converts the signals back into sound waves. Early telephones ranged from large wooden wall telephones to candlestick desk sets before being replaced by the rotary dial telephone with a handset resting on its base. Today, calling the operator, receiving a yearly telephone directory, and memorizing all your friends’ and family’s numbers recalls nostalgia for many.

This exhibition was made possible through a generous loan from the JKL Museum of Telephony; special thanks to JKL curator Remco Enthoven.

Visit https://www.sfomuseum.org/exhibitions/give-me-ring-telephone-retrospective for more information

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