. Bell telephone magazine . Switchboards for i)iterconnecti)ig sub-scribers telephones were a major concernof early telephone men. The iSyg modelat the left was the operator s position in asystem which also required the services ofa switchman at the frame where the linesterminated. He had to tell her when there was a call to answer and she had to tell himwhich lines to connect. The model at theright, manufactured by the Western ElectricCompany—note the initials spelled out bythe drops—for use in Detroit in the mid-Eighties, represents a transition towardthe normal manual switchboard, althought
. Bell telephone magazine . Switchboards for i)iterconnecti)ig sub-scribers telephones were a major concernof early telephone men. The iSyg modelat the left was the operator s position in asystem which also required the services ofa switchman at the frame where the linesterminated. He had to tell her when there was a call to answer and she had to tell himwhich lines to connect. The model at theright, manufactured by the Western ElectricCompany—note the initials spelled out bythe drops—for use in Detroit in the mid-Eighties, represents a transition towardthe normal manual switchboard, althoughthe plugs are drawn down from above toestablish connections i95i The First 75 Years. This Law switchboard served at St. Louis through the Eighties. Girl operators had not vet entirely ousted boys from the operating room, and the male chief operator and manager was an important part of the picture the first Bell Telephone Companywith office space there.* These four set the pattern for BellSystem growth. They were respon-sible, first of all, for the policy ofrenting telephones instead of sellingthem outright to let the buyer makewhat use he might of them. Thismade the telephone company, andits licensed representatives, respon-sible not only for telephones but forthe service they gave; obviously, themost far-sighted and proper policythat could have been adopted. It hascontributed vastly to the present emi-nence of American telephone the counterproposal—to selloutright—prevailed, the incentive tosteadily improving service wouldhave fallen to other and, quite pos-sibly, less interested hands. Cer-tainly, development would have been * See Robert Devonshires
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