By 1930, almost 41% of American housing units featured a telephone. But the Depression undid many of these gains. By 1933, more than 2.5 million households had cancelled their service and fewer than a third of American homes were reachable by phone. Which perhaps explains why corporations like American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) and the Bell Telephone Company spent so much of the first half of the twentieth century trying to teach people how to use the things.
This 1939 photograph of women at a Demonstration Telephone Call Application desk is from the AT&T building at the New York World's Fair, which took place in Flushing Meadows, Queens from April 30, 1939 to October 31, 1940.
Nearly 45 million people visited the event. The theme was "The World of Tomorrow." The fairground was divided into seven thematic zones; manufacturing and distribution, transportation, amusements, community interests, government, food, and communications and business, all surrounding a theme center defined by the notable structures of the 18-story Perisphere and the 700-foot Trylon obelisk.
While many attractions of the fair were sponsored by governments and the New York World's Fair Corporation, others were privately sponsored exhibitions purchased by large corporations like RCA, Westinghouse, General Motors, Ford, and similar companies.
The 1939 New York World's Fair AT&T telephone exhibit photographs (Accession 2012.230) is a small collection that consists of eight photographs showing telephone operators at the long-distance telephone exhibit in the American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) building, where visitors were shown how and given the opportunity to make long distance calls to any registered U.S. telephone. The collection is a new addition to the Hagley Digital Archives; click here to view it online now.