“Remove the Receiver from the hook,” read a notice in The Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch in 1919, “and listen for a steady humming sound, known as the ‘Dial Tone.’ If you hear the dial tone, place your finger in the hole containing the first figure of the number to be called and pull the dial as far as it will go. . . .” (An accompanying article described the noise as being “like the buzzing of a bumble bee or other large insect.”)
Never before had an American telephone company employed this signal, says Roger Conklin, a telephone collector and historian. Until then, the leading telephone provider, the Bell System, relied on its corps of “hello girls” to connect lines at central switchboards so no dial tone was necessary. Other phone companies did use an automatic dial system. (According to the Western University historian Robert MacDougall, the providers of the “girl-less” lines promised that they never eavesdrop and are “never impudent and saucy.”) But they didn’t bother with a dial tone either. Their systems were simple enough that customers rarely suffered serious delays in making connections.
High muggle area, please reposition the cache exactly as found!