The Computer History Archive Project recently shared this vintage educational video on YouTube. The video shows in impressively clear and concise detail exactly how long distance calls were made in the late 1920s. Though I had an idea that the process required multiple points of connection, I was always fuzzy on the details. This was unsurprising since most of my early 20th century phone technology education came from movies like Meet Me in St. Louis – “There’d be H to pay if my family ever found out I called long distance,” etc. Anyway, the video is super informative – check it out in full here.

Vintage Telephone Technology: Western Electric, Bell Telephone, AT&T, vintage telephone technology film describes how they made Long Distance Calls in 1927, and full documentary on the evolution of operator assisted calling to Direct Dialing system of the 1950’s. Excellent narration and images of early telephone technology, use of transistors, relays, coax cable, microwave relay towers, telephone switchboards and switchboard operators and more. From the Prelinger Archive, a technical documentary circa 1950. A great example of telephone technology evolution over time. Runs over 18 mins.