From the Census Bureau comes more fodder for the stuff-that-is-interesting-but-doesn’t-really- matter-anymore file. Or something like that. Let your fingers do the walking, uh, clicking through this look back at a trusty companion to one of the most useful communications devices ever invented.
Tuesday, February 21st, is the 139th birthday of what became known as “the phone book,” Census reported in a release Tuesday.
In the early days of the telephone, knowing who had one and what the number was quickly became a problem. The first telephone directory in the U.S. was published on this date in 1878 in New Haven, Connecticut. It wasn’t a big list — there were only 50 subscribers. A little later, a directory also came out in San Francisco, with about 170 names. Today, of America’s 118 million housing units occupied by owners or renters, over 115 million, or nearly 98 percent, have cellular or landline telephone service. Thirteen firms issue directories for the nation’s personal and business phone numbers, which in 2010 already totaled more than 1.4 billion. Manufacturing telephones and associated equipment is a $7.6 billion a year domestic business. Profile America is in its 20th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.
Sources: Kane’s Famous First Facts, 1818
San Francisco directory/accessed 12/2/2016: http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/hgtel.htm
Households and phone service: https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/15_1YR/DP04
Telephone directory publishing/accessed 12/2/2016:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Telephone_directory_publishing_companies_of_the_United_States
Phone numbers/p. 12, t. 1/accessed 12/2/2016:
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-319997A1.pdf
Manufacturing/Annual Survey of Manufacturers/NAICS 334210: http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ASM/2014/31VS101//prodsvc~334210
