Candlestick telephone
Encyclopedia
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
that was common from the late 1890s to the 1930s.
History
Also known as a desk stand, upright, or a stick phone, it came with or without a rotary dialRotary dial
The rotary dial is a device mounted on or in a telephone or switchboard that is designed to send electrical pulses, known as pulse dialing, corresponding to the number dialed. The early form of the rotary dial used lugs on a finger plate instead of holes. Almon Brown Strowger filed the first patent...
, and with a ringer box
Ringer box
The ringer box is an external phone ringer housed in a bell box or subscriber set, and was used with most early desk stand type phones including the candlestick telephones, and the Western Electric model 102 and 202 telephones, which were too small to hold a ringer or other needed electrical parts...
. The first tube shaft candlestick phone was the Western Electric #20B Desk Phone patented in 1904.
The main producers of these phones were Western Electric
Western Electric
Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995. It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management...
(AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
), Automatic Electric Co. (GTE
GTE
GTE Corporation, formerly General Telephone & Electronics Corporation was the largest independent telephone company in the United States during the days of the Bell System....
), Kellogg
Kellogg Switchboard & Supply Company
Kellogg Switchboard & Supply Company was a major manufacturer of telephone exchange equipment. It was founded in Chicago, Illinois, by Milo G. Kellogg, an electrical engineer...
, and Stromberg-Carlson
Stromberg-Carlson
Stromberg-Carlson was a telecommunications equipment and electronics manufacturing company formed in 1894 as a partnership of Alfred Stromberg and Androv Carlson. Along with four other companies, it controlled the United States national supply of telephone equipment until after World War...
. The candlestick phones made by Western Electric were superseded by the Model 102 telephone
Model 102 telephone
The Model 102 telephone was Western Electric's first widely distributed telephone set to feature the transmitter and receiver in a common handset. Prior models had been of the "candlestick" type, which featured a transmitter fixed to the base, and a receiver held to the ear...
in 1927.
Several retro
Retro
Retro is a culturally outdated or aged style, trend, mode, or fashion, from the overall postmodern past, that has since that time become functionally or superficially the norm once again. The use of "retro" style iconography and imagery interjected into post-modern art, advertising, mass media, etc...
versions of the candlestick telephone were made long after the original phones were obsolete. The Crosley
Crosley
The Crosley was an automobile manufactured by the Crosley Corporation and later by Crosley Motors Incorporated in the United States from 1939 to 1952.-History:...
Radio company makes a 21st century version with push button operation. There are other companies including PHONECO inc. that sells original, restored, and reproductions.
The Ericofon
Ericofon
The Ericofon, or Cobra Phone is a plastic one-piece telephone created by the Ericsson Company and marketed throughout the second half of the 20th century. It was the first commercially marketed telephone design to incorporate the dial and handset into a single unit...
, or Cobra Phone is a plastic one-piece telephone, in the candlestick/upright style, created by the Ericsson
Ericsson
Ericsson , one of Sweden's largest companies, is a provider of telecommunication and data communication systems, and related services, covering a range of technologies, including especially mobile networks...
Company and marketed throughout the second half of the 20th century. It was the first commercially marketed telephone design to incorporate the dial and headset into a single unit. Because of its styling, and influence on future telephone design, the Ericofon is considered one of the most significant industrial designs of the 20th century and is in the collection of Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
.
Accessories
The Hush-A-Phone was like a mini megaphoneMegaphone
A megaphone, speaking-trumpet, bullhorn, blowhorn, or loud hailer is a portable, usually hand-held, cone-shaped horn used to amplify a person’s voice or other sounds towards a targeted direction. This is accomplished by channelling the sound through the megaphone, which also serves to match the...
created in 1920 for slipping over the candlestick phone.