Different times for sure Ehh Redsetter but one could sure make a fun time out of it when playing back the tapes to the adults. Some of the Men and Women back in the day were just as loose as some those are now they just didn't realize they were being unknowingly caught by talking about it. 

JLouis

Redsetter wrote on Jun 11^th, 2018 at 7:43pm:

  OK, how many phones were there?

Jeff_Schultz wrote on Jun 11^th, 2018 at 7:51pm:


Interesting question, but judging from movies made in the '20s, everybody living in a private dwelling had a phone; certainly in cities, & even in many rural areas.  Telephone service had been around a long time in most parts of the East by 1920.

Growing up in the big city of Portland, we had a population of 300,000 in the city limits. No dedicated phone lines available in our neighborhood and 10 families on the party line.
We also had no city sewer system and everyone had a cesspool or septic tank. But my wife and I still had no city sewer connection here in Portland until 1996 either! Sewer lines were in place, but the city didn't require hooking up until that time. Population was 2 million in the late 1990's here.
No cable TV either until around that same time. Life was good!

Bill Lawrence wrote on Jun 11^th, 2018 at 6:02pm:

I doubt it.  Labor for 24/7 operator to place calls would be too expensive. 

I forgot you used to have to ask the operator place the call since there were no dials.  I'm sure Zichang's card was printed for that system, before everyone was assigned a number.  Even a short one like BR 549 

When my parents finally got a phone, about 1960, there were 4 parties on one half that you heard ring and 4 more on the other half that you didn't hear.  If you got more than 3 or 4 listeners, the volume got so low nobody could hear anything.  My mother was not bashful about saying if these damn nosy neighbors would get off the line she would be able to hear. 

I think my grandparents got electricity about 1940 along with indoor plumbing    Grandpa said s**t in the house, I'm not going to s**t in the house!  He didn't until he had no choice in the early 60s when the Grade A dairy standards made out houses illegal on dairy farms. 

My parents installed both plumbing and electricity when  they built in 1947.  That electric milking machine must have been the best part of electric power coming 

westerner wrote on Jun 11^th, 2018 at 11:18pm:


There were a hundred million people living in Syracuse in 1920?

westerner wrote on Jun 12^th, 2018 at 1:41pm:


Well, to me they are, as I once had a small collection of antique phones, the more common ones that is, whereas any work of Zischang is probably far beyond my means.