1950’s Instructional Film on How To Dial a Telephone

The AT&T Tech Channel is featuring a 1950’s Western Electric film on how to dial a telephone without out the assistance of an operator.

The goal of this film was to aid in reducing customer dialing irregularities by demonstrating the correct way to use the dial telephone. It documents the shift between operator-based connections (which were on the way out) and having to dial the phone and make the connection yourself.

The dial telephone was new at this point, although the two-letter, 5-number system was still commonplace. This film even has to explain what a ringing and busy signal sound like!

via One Cool Thing a Day