{"id":2466,"date":"2011-12-01T06:00:26","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T06:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doddcenter.wordpress.com\/?p=2466"},"modified":"2025-02-12T18:29:45","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T18:29:45","slug":"december-2011-item-of-the-month-the-switchboard-that-launched-the-first-public-telephone-company-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/2011\/12\/01\/december-2011-item-of-the-month-the-switchboard-that-launched-the-first-public-telephone-company-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"December 2011 Item of the Month: The switchboard that launched the first public telephone company in the world"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Blueprint for George Coy’s switchboard, 1878<\/p><\/div>\n

On April 27, 1877, George Willard Coy attended a demonstration at Skiff’s Opera House in New Haven, Connecticut, of an exciting new invention —\u00a0the telephone — given\u00a0by inventor\u00a0Alexander Graham Bell.\u00a0\u00a0 Coy, a Civil War veteran and manager of the New Haven\u00a0office of\u00a0the\u00a0Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company, was fascinated by the possibilities of this invention.\u00a0 In November 1877 he was awarded a Bell telephone franchise for New Haven and Middlesex counties and spent the next two months getting partners and financial backing.\u00a0 On January 28, 1878, the New Haven District Telephone Company, in a rented storefront office in the Boardman Building at the corner of Chapel and State Streets,\u00a0opened for business\u00a0with 21 subscribers, each of whom paid $1.50 per month for the service.\u00a0 It was the first telephone exchange in the world.<\/p>\n

Prior to this time the first telephones were used privately on lines that allowed\u00a0allow two people on each end to communicate over very short distances.\u00a0 George Coy invented the first switchboard, which, according to a writing done by the Southern New England Telephone Company (the successor to the New Haven District Telephone Company) “consisted of a wooden panel about three feet wide and two feet high, with a little shelf at its base on which the operator’s telephone rested when not in use.\u00a0 Across the top were four circles of contacts which resembled clock dials, each contact connected to a subscriber’s wire.\u00a0 In the center of each circle was a metal arm like the pointer of a clock, which could be connected with any one of the eight contact points…”\u00a0 Apparently Coy had to improvise in constructing the switchboard by using wires from ladies’ bustles.<\/p>\n

This blueprint is one of several Coy made after the initial installation of the switchboard, in an effort to patent the design.\u00a0 More information about George W. Coy and his switchboard can be found in the records of the Southern New England Telephone Company, a collection that was donated to Archives & Special Collections in 2003, the 125th anniversary of the founding of the company and the creation of the switchboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 27, 1877, George Willard Coy attended a demonstration at Skiff’s Opera House in New Haven, Connecticut, of an exciting new invention —\u00a0the telephone — given\u00a0by inventor\u00a0Alexander Graham Bell.\u00a0\u00a0 Coy, a Civil War veteran and manager of the New … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[44,89,93],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NKyO-DM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2466"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9473,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466\/revisions\/9473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}