Melting Snow

Fun Fact Friday: Female Superhero and Telephone Technology

Friday, March 10, 2017

Female Superhero

On March 10, 1913 Harriet Tubman, civil rights activist and former slave, died of Pneumonia in Auburn, New York, at the age of 90 or 91. Ms Tubman was a conductor on the underground railroad which help transport numerous women, men and children to freedom. For more information on this superhero see 7 Times Harriet Tubman Was a Badass Superhero   by Genetta M. Adams.

Th Fun Fact Friday prompt for "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" 
On this day in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made the first successful call with the telephone. How much of a factor has the telephone (in all its forms) had in the difference between society now and 140 years ago?

Telephone Technology

When my grandparents were born in the late part of the 19^th century they used phones that hung on the wall with a crank that you called an operator with. I remember Grandma telling me about party lines and the ability to listen in or even enter in on someone else's conversations. We worry about security on our smartphones, but apparently there were no such worries when the telephone first come int use in the late 1800s.

I know my grandparents had a phone in 1921 because that's how they contacted the doctor when Grandma went into labor with my mother. The doctor, who was the only person in town to have a car, drove to my grandparents farm to deliver my mother. I don't know if all the farmers in that area of Oklahoma had a phone, but most of them I suspect did. My grandfather, who was born sometime in late 1890s (I think), was one of those people who liked having the latest technology. He was practical so he only purchased technology that he could use on the farm or would help my grandmother.

When I was growing up we had a rotary phone at home. When we were away from home, if we needed to call home or one of our friends, we had to use a public phone which cost either ten or twenty-five cents to make a local call. If we knew the number then we could dial it direct, but if we only knew the names then we had to go through the operator. If we were making a long distance call then we had to go through the operator.