Operation of early switchboards. Pages of book showing early switchboard. Man operating switchboard. The first switchboard for commercial telephone service installed in New Haven, Connecticut. A man operating and talking into telephone and other man listening. Men operating switchboards.
A film describing a mechanical dialing system of telephones. Men working with switchboards and other equipment. A woman with a short curly flapper hair cut dials a phone number on a candlestick style phone and speaks into the phone.
A film describing telephone exchange operations and the work of early telephone switchboard operators. A book showing picture of 1879 telephone exchange. Young men reenact the operation of an 1879 era telephone exchange or switchboard. They work feverishly to keep up with calls and make connections while a supervisor stands behind and observes. The 1879 system is then contrasted with the newer 1926 system. Large number of women seen seated at a line of telephone switchboards, handling calls in an orderly fashion. They wear early headphone apparatus. Supervisors walk behind the women inspecting operations. Close up view of women operating the telephone switchboards. Animated representation of connection between telephones and different places.
Animated film shows how sound waves are created by the human voice cause movement of air molecules and how this movement is transmitted through the flexible diaphragm of the telephone mouthpiece. The electrons passing through carbon granules in the mouthpiece are transformed into electric current and the magnet and flexible diaphragm in the telephone receiver transforms the current into sound waves. An old man and a kid talking into phone.
A film shows how voice travels over phones, and dramatizes the transmission of a telephone call from San Francisco to Plymouth, England. Functions of telephone system components, including generators, towers, transformers, technicians at circuits, wire lines and the aerial systems at Rocky Point in New York, Cupar in Scotland and Houlton in Maine. Shows switchboard activity at the London Trunk Exchange. Workers, mostly women telephone switchboard workers, answering and routing calls in telephone exchange.
An open truck filled with revelers, carrying American flags, travels along a street in Washington DC during World War 1 Armistice celebrations. Views from a moving vehicle passing crowds lined up on the sidewalk, in front of the State, War, and Navy Building (AKA the Old Executive Office Building, or Eisenhower Executive Office Building) ready to view a parade. A group of women walking in a street in front of a crowd. They pass an automobile where several U.S. Army soldiers stand. Scene shifts to White House driveway, where people gather outside the fence. President Woodrow Wilson steps from the White House front entrance, with an officer and other officials, and enters his Pierce Arrow limousine, displaying license plate number 80002, and an AAA symbol on its radiator. Scene shifts to the President's car leaving the Capitol building, with Secret Service Agents riding on the running boards. A crowd breaking up in front of the Capitol, as the President's car leaves. A small group of persons, including soldiers in uniform and a woman, surround an Army officer who affixes a message to the leg of a carrier pigeon, and sets it free. (World War I; World War 1; WWI; WW1)
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