Once upon a Telephone: An Illustrated Social History

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The telephone rings. It jingles our psyches, jangles our nerves. We are seduced and soothed, rattled and betrayed by it. Wherever it is - on the desk or street corner, the high seas or highway, in our bathrooms or briefcases - it has, for a machine, an allure like no other. Once Upon a Telephone is a visual history of this indispensable and inescapable apparatus - with an emphasis on the days before 800s, 900s, voice mail, and FAX. Lavishly illustrated in full color with a wealth of twentieth-century ephemera - ...
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More About This Book

Overview

The telephone rings. It jingles our psyches, jangles our nerves. We are seduced and soothed, rattled and betrayed by it. Wherever it is - on the desk or street corner, the high seas or highway, in our bathrooms or briefcases - it has, for a machine, an allure like no other. Once Upon a Telephone is a visual history of this indispensable and inescapable apparatus - with an emphasis on the days before 800s, 900s, voice mail, and FAX. Lavishly illustrated in full color with a wealth of twentieth-century ephemera - everything from movie stills to matchbooks - and including excerpts from a variety of literary sources, Once Upon a Telephone is a spirited tribute to operators, directories, phone booths, and, of course, the appliance itself. The evolution of telephony irreversibly altered conventions of modern romance and constructions of power; Once Upon a Telephone is the only work in existence to chronicle these changes in such a comprehensive and entertaining fashion.

This visual history, complete with 200 color and black-and-white illustrations, is a one-of-a-kind tribute to the most influential of modern inventions--the telephone. With an emphasis on the days before 800 numbers and FAX machines, this book is a spirited, nostalgic exploration.

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Editorial Reviews

Library Journal
Stern (The Good Heart Diet Cookbook, LJ 1/15/82) and Gwathmey (Ticket to Paradise, LJ 11/15/91) have collected ephemera, anecdotes, and excerpts about the telephone. Movie stills, magazine covers, greeting cards, and sheet music are included, along with quotes ranging from Carl Sandburg to Nicholson Baker, from Dorothy Parker to Emily Post. The breezy text, nearly obscured by the lavish illustrations and generous quotes, provides an adequate chronicle of the invention of the telephone, the evolution of telephone equipment, and the development of telephone books and pay phones. Chapters cover telephone operators, telephones and teenagers, and the telephone's importance to business and romance. This book is a delightful romp through 20th-century American social history, and it succeeds in portraying the telephone as ubiquitous in popular culture. For public libraries.-Wendy Knickerbocker, Rhode Island Coll. Lib., Providence
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780151000869
  • Publisher: Harcourt
  • Publication date: 12/1/1994
  • Edition description: 1st ed
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 144

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