History Under Our Feet

You've probably seen these remnants of history all over Brooklyn. The "Bell System" was the American Bell Telephone Company, later AT&T, the "the greatest telecommunications system on earth." Alexander Graham Bell formed the Bell Telephone Company in 1877.

From Wikipedia:

The Bell System was the American Bell Telephone Company and then, subsequently, AT&T–led system which provided telephone services to much of the United States and Canada from 1877 to 1984, at various times as a monopoly. In 1984, the company was broken up into separate companies, by a U.S. Justice Department mandate.

The colloquial term Ma Bell was often used by the general public."

Telephones were simple devices used to speak to people in other locations. Customers paid a very affordable fee every month to use one. No one collected the users' personal data or contact lists, and spyware was not installed on the device. (That would have been considered rude.) Weird, huh?

The Bell System Memorial Page is here.

Photo by MK Metz

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