Was that convincing? So, I am here today to tell you why
people shared phone lines with strangers. And a lot of the time, they had to.
This is the history of one of the strangest social relics of a forgotten technology called the party
line, and it includes creepy marionettes, bone inspectors, and the meanest woman that i've
never met: Mary L Case. (Pure evil laughter)
Ah! Go to the montage. "I'd like to talk over with you our job..."
"Thank you." "For taking care of our party line customers."
"Nearly 11 million of our customers are party line customers."
"Party line you know..." "Thank you."
"Have you any idea what it's like to be on a party line with a, a sex maniac?"
This is the painful awkwardness of the party line in 1951, and in 1951 three fourths of all
Americans with phone service had this situation. So what exactly was a party line?
"Burn it all down!" (very evil sounding, this video is rated S for SCARY)
Not yet Mary. Let's go more passive aggressive first.
"Good morning. In party line service, the wires are shared by two or more customers
and so service can be furnished at a lower rate." If this doesn't make sense, phone companies they
didn't have the bandwidth to give each phone their own connection to the central line,
so houses shared a common line. That meant that they shared one busy signal—there wasn't call
waiting—and also one open circuit. Uh, let's say someone called Mary.
Well everyone's phone rang, then if Mary picks up and she's talking on the phone,
everyone's phone is suddenly busy. If you picked up the phone in your house while
Mary was talking, you heard her conversation, because it was like...your phone too.
Sometimes, each house would have a different ring to signal it.
Mary got one ring, Joe got two rings, etc. Uh, or sometimes the ring was slightly different.
Most people say that this system started around the 1890s and they were common through the 1960s.
Party lines cost less than single lines, as this old 1921 listing shows.
But it was partly, at least according to the phone companies, a real infrastructure challenge.
They just didn't have enough technicians and enough infrastructure to get everybody their own
phone line, so they had to use party lines. "We've simply got to have a private line."
"We'd be glad to do that if we could, but right now we haven't
enough facilities for people who want service." But to me it is not just the technology that's
interesting here, it's the almost sci-fi like social ramifications of the technology
that you get into when you really think about it, and when you do the research.
And that is where Mary Case comes in.
Imagine picking up your phone and just hearing a conversation.
"Yeah who is going to click on that?" "Yeah i mean party lines, like do
another Pentagon video, right?" "Why is the Squareagon a square?"
"Yes! Wait, sorry, what is a Squareagon?" "Click to find out my friend."
"That's kind of hurtful." "Yeah honestly that's better
than this telephone sh---" "Who is that woman?"
"Some little eavesdropper on my party line. She's always listening in."
Party lines obviously affected the social networks of the first half of the 20th century,
but there are ramifications that I just didn't even think about until I started researching it.
They could just be jokes, like this cute magazine ad where little Cupid
is listening in on the party line. It's sweet, he's not a pervert, he's a baby.
Or there's also this ad that riffs on party lines to imply that executives are all listening
in on each other, breathing heavily into the receiver as they collaborate on steel stuff.
I mean that's good... Telephone companies had
to have huge promotional campaigns to teach customers how to behave appropriately on a
party line. Sometimes they included marionettes. "My name's Handy. Hi Handy, nice to meet you."
This stuff is so awkward. Let's start with this ad:
you depend on your neighbor to hang up your phone. How weird is that? But really, the big
thing is just this universal acknowledgement that everyone's a huge creep and listening
to everybody else's phone calls on the party line. Here is a beautiful little song about it:
"Everybody listens on the telephone, they just can't leave you alone."
As if the creepiness weren't enough, you had to negotiate with people to get on your own phone
if you weren't already on it. "One case I had was a newly married
bride who tried to call her mother every morning. Now this happened to be just at the time when her
neighbor wanted to order all her household supplies. So at 10 every morning, whoever
got the line first was good for a long time. It finally came to a verbal hair pulling match."
And sometimes this proved deadly. Here is a person in California who
died because they just couldn't get through to any emergency service because somebody
else was on the party line. A few states passed laws requiring
you to hang up if there was an emergency. Did they actually enforce this? Well, yes.
Here's the story: a local guy saw fire, he picks up the phone, he's like 'ah there's fire
let me call the emergency department right now.' Well, Mary L. Case is already on the other line
she's on the phone, and she says "let the damned thing burn,
I've got a long distance call to Rochester." The fire destroyed a woodshed and a barn.
Mary got lucky. The judge dismissed her after her conviction. But this
was the kind of stuff that actually happened. "The kind of job you do with each complaining
customer will have an important effect on how well we get through this difficult period."
Okay, so who cares? Why does any of this matter that there were these party line things?
Okay i i know you're listening, can you just hang up please?
"Okay I hung up." I know you're still there.
Okay, for one, I just think it's like crazy that this once ubiquitous
part of life is totally forgotten. I mean, Pillow Talk was a huge hit in 1959,
it was a number one movie and it is based around the idea of party lines being kind of a pain.
"I do hate to interrupt, but would you mind hanging up please."
"Who's that?" "The other half of my party line,
just ignore her, she'll go away." Of course, by the 1950s and 1960s,
party lines were starting to die out. By the 80s, they were a rarity.
It is my two cents that we criticize modern technology as if it creates problems. We
talk about cyber bullying or Instagram addicts. I think new technologies can change
our behaviors and our societies for sure. I mean, this 1935 article claimed that
people stopped eavesdropping on party lines when they got radios to use as entertainment instead.
That said, I don't think that new technology creates those instincts within us — that was
there all along — and party lines are proof. So let us honor those early generations from
the 1900s through the 1960s and remember that they too were all creepy perverts who were also kind of
jerks and wanted to just see the world burn. (Evil laughter until the world burns.)
All right that's it for this one. Thank you for watching.
If you haven't been here before, this is a personal channel where I post
history, personal videos, stuff like that. Uh, it really helps out the channel if you're
able to subscribe or leave a comment. I knew that i talked to a couple of people who had party lines
when they were kids before this video, and so if you did or you know any other trivia about it
I'd love to know in the comments. Uh yeah last week, I did this video
also about JCR Licklider, who kind of invented the internet, in my humble opinion, and the publisher
sent me a copy of the book and it's really cool, it's really shiny. So very exciting for me.
All right that, is it for this one. Thank you for watching. I'm gonna go order a pizza now.
On this uh totally fake phone that I will never use again. Okay.
"Imaginary Pizza what's your order?" Yeah um large please.
"Sure you want to do this? I mean did you even dial?"
No I'm too far into this joke no, I can't stop at this point.
"Right okay. What kind of crust?" Thin crust."
"Ttoppings, can you do toppings on your fake pizza?"
Um yeah okay. "What toppings?"
Yeah like on half hamburger, half italian sausage. "That sounds weird, all right, drink?"
Sure I mean since this is a fake phone call, yeah let's get the soda.
"Soda, what type?" Mountain Dew.
"Okay that's fine." Diet.
"Diet on your fake soda? That's sad. Uh, it'll be ready in 30."
Okay thank you so much bye. "That guy's an idiot!"