Telephone History 1900-1940

The early part of the Twentieth century was a tough time for Bell Telephone. At one point, independent companies had more subscribers than Bell. The government and public began to dislike Bell’s domination of the telephone industry. With the increased public outcry and competition, Bell had to make some changes. They created a “universal theme” where every person in the United States would have a telephone in their home. Bell then merged the research and development departments into one plant at Western Electric. Looking to expand across the country, in 1915, Bell ran the first coast-to-coast line from New York to San Francisco and developed a “wireless” system to connect with other countries. Advancements continued into the 1920’s with the invention of radio, “talking” motion pictures, and testing began on the television. By 1921, Bell opened its first public dial service office in Dallas, before that it was only available in independent areas and introduced the ”French” telephone (pictured above). The late 1920’s brought an economic downturn; mostly due to the depression; massive layoffs and a decline in telephone service and long-distance calls. In the mid-1930’s, the government formed the Federal Commerce Commission to regulate the telephone industry and began investigating AT&T. The most important discovery was that Western Electric was charging too much money for equipment. The investigation slowed after a major hurricane hit the east coast and the start of World War II grabbed much of the government’s attention.
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