Rotary Telephones

[Dean]

They still work according to this article written in November of 2022.

My parents had a rotary wall phone in the first farmhouse. It was also on a party line. There were maybe 6 or 8 other farms on the same line. We knew the call was for us when there was a long ring followed by a short ring. Two short rings meant the call was intended for someone else. Different combinations of short and long rings would mean the calls were for different people. Anyone could pick up their receiver and listen in or talk regardless of who the call was actually for. Mom and the neighbor ladies would have afternoon discussions after they had their morning chores done. That was after dinner. Dinner in my world at the time was at noon. Lunch was about 4 pm. or so. Supper was around sundown.

[hubops]

We had a party line when I was a kid - up to the 1970s' or so. Later, when touch-tone became standard, Ma Bell decided to tack-on a monthly fee for touch-tone service - even though every customer was forced to have it .. My older brother fought them over the fee and eventually won ! John T.

[Retirednoguilt]

At a summer camp in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania that I attended back in the mid-late 1950s, the camp's phone was a wooden box with an ear piece on a cord and a microphone mounted on a pivot joint that was attached to the box. You wanted to make a call? You picked up the earpiece and listened to make sure that another party wasn't already on the line. If all you heard was static, you cranked the crank until the local operator answered. You asked for "long distance to ......" and if you were lucky, the operator (always a woman) didn't say "no lines are available now, please try later." When you were connected to the long distance operator, you told her (always a woman) the city or town and state that you were calling and gave her the 7 digit number (no area codes back then). Again, if you were lucky, you didn't hear the dreaded "all lines are busy now; please try again later" and later you would have to start from scratch.