Crank Phone
Do you know what this photo shows?
This telephone from the 1930s was used in a home in rural Norway and is called a crank telephone. If you wanted to call someone, you had to turn the small crank on the upper right side, which would signal the operator at the local switchboard that someone wanted to make a call. You would tell the operator, usually a woman, the number you were calling and she would connect the call. If you were making a local call, you probably could just tell her the name of the person you wanted to speak to, since the operator knew everyone in town. The operator’s switchboard was a big collection of wires and plugs. To make your phone call, she put your wire into the plug for the person you wanted to speak to. There was no such thing as dialing the call yourself.
The last hand-crank telephone service in the U.S. was just up the road in Bryant Pond. A crank phone system hung on there until 1983.
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