The Party Line....

[Lincsong]

Back in the day when money was scarce and the telephone was considered a luxury several families would share one telephone line, thus the "party line". I am told that each family would have a certain number of rings on the phone to indicate which home the call was intended, but that nosy people could listen onto conversations. Did anyone have one of these growing up? What do you remember of it?

 

[Jedburgh OSS]

Yes, I had relatives who had party lines in Lebanon, Indiana, in the 1960's, and a neighbor had one in the 1970's in Speedway (the suburb of Indianapolis where the 500 racetrack really is). The phones would ring a certain number of times or the ring would be of a specific length. They seemed to be more common in small towns before they were phased out. If I was at any of their houses when the phone would ring they would listen and say that's ours or that's so-and-so's.

 

[carouselvic]

Yes we had a oak wall phone until mid 1967, on a party line. Our ring was two longs and one short.

 

[Flivver]

We had a two party line in the early 1950s but I was just a toddler then and don't remember much about it. It didn't seem to be much of a problem.

But, my grandparents (with the TUxedo exchange) had one into the 1960s that I do remember. It was a four party line and often, when you'd pick up the receiver to make a call, the line would be in use.

I think the reason my Mom swithched to a private line early on was because she didn't want the neighbors listening in on her conversations.

 

[dhermann1]

When we moved to western New York State in 1955, everybody had party lines. Each phone had a separate 4 digit number, but if someone on your party line was talking, instead of a dial tone, you heard their conversation. If you had the town gossip down the street from you, your house could be on fire and they often wouldn't hang up to let you dial.
And of course there was often that tell tell background sound, or sometimes a click when someone picked up, that told you someone was listening to your conversation. Very creepy nasty and obnoxious. It's one of those "Golden Age" things, like polio, that we're all MUCH better off without.

 

[John in Covina]

I think my parents had a party line when they first moved into Copiague, the mosquito stricken wilds of the South shore of Long Island in the mid 1950's. By the time I came along and was old enough to remember, we did NOT have one.

I do recall that for just about everyone that did have one including my parents, it was the source of many complaints.

 

[BegintheBeguine]

I'm chuckling as the far and away biggest reason hubby and I got the dreaded cellular telephones is because we didn't like my dad listening in on the extension! I didn't care so much about gossipy personal calls but if I were talking to customers they deserved some privacy.
We had a party line at the farm in Cartersville, Georgia until the late 70s, just about when we got an indoor bathroom (referred to as the commode). Like Jedburgh OSS an aunt or uncle would listen to the ring and say that's ours or no, no ours, that's so and so's.

 

[John in Covina]

Back in the day when money was scarce and the telephone was considered a luxury several families would share one telephone line, thus the "party line".

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Telephone use was quite simply, expensive, you could be making a regular wage but in comparison to today (and going back to before 25-30 years ago) local calls were pricey and long distance was astronomical.

Calling Long Distance was a big deal inside the continental US and say from the continental US to call Hawaii was the next tier up in expensive. (I watched an episode of Hawaii Five-O not too long ago and the cost of phoning stateside was a key point in a conversation.)

Calling out of the country to say Europe was a ticking time bomb of cost.
My mom called Denmark in the 60's and a roughly 25 minute call was over $75 which was A LOT of money back then.

I remember a recording setting phone bill in the news in the 70's. A guy broke up with his girlfriend and had to travel right after for work. When he came home, his phone was off the hook and a voice speaking a foreign language came on regularly saying something. It turns out while he was away, his former girlfriend used her key to his apartment and called Tokyo Japan the number for local time. By the time he retruned to hang up the monthly bill was many multiples of his yearly wage.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We *didn't* have a party line, specifically because my mother had been an operator before she had kids, and didn't trust party lines in emergencies -- she'd often had to break in on yammering insignificant chit-chatters and *order* them to get off the line when someone was trying to place an emergency call.

But my best friend next door did have one -- and we got a great deal of entertainment out of listening in on the rest of the neighborhood.

John is right about Long Distance being a big deal. In our town, everywhere over 10 miles away was Long Distance -- any call for which you had to dial more than four digits -- and woe betide anyone who made a call outside the local exchange without a good reason. Calling out of state was utterly unheard of -- I don't think I ever placed an out of state phone call until I was in my thirties.

 

[Chas]

We had one when I was a kid. What we would often do is listen in on the conversation for about 2-3 minutes and then join in, make it an unwilling conference call. It drove people nuts, but it was cheap entertainment for us.

 

[Lincsong]

I have a cousin who was stationed at the Panama Canal Zone in the 1960's and his "prize" in a contest was to call home for 5 minutes. That was quite a high dollar amount.

 

[Big Man]

My grandmother's house was on a seven party line. While it was an annoyance most of the time, it was the only type of service available where they lived for a number of years (Nebo didn't get telephone service until the mid-1950's). I can still remember picking up the phone to call and having Mrs. Plant from down the road yell out, "I'm on this line - hang it up." As best I can remember, the Plant's dominated the telephone line, so getting a call out was something kind of special.

 

[JimInSoCalif]

*****************
Calling out of the country to say Europe was a ticking time bomb of cost.
My mom called Denmark in the 60's and a roughly 25 minute call was over $75 which was A LOT of money back then.

I am surprised it was not even more. In 1962 I called from London, England to San Jose, Calif. to give a friend a report on a race car that was for sale and a three minute call was $25.00. We really talked fast.

Maybe mine was a 'person to person' call instead of a 'station to station' call. For those who were not around in the bad old days, with the first, the operator verified that the person you wanted to talk to was available or there was no charge, with the second the call was billed no matter who answered. There was, of course, a higher charge for the extra service.

 

[WideBrimm]

Such fond memories. Our family never had a party line, but when we moved to a small town in New Mexico in the late 1950s we did have an "operator" system and four digit numbers. Remember Ernestine from "Laugh In" "Number Please (snort) (snort)" ?. Pick up the phone and give the operator the number and wait for the connection.

In college in the late 1960's only rich kids had phones in their dorm rooms. Everyone else used the pay phone in the lounge. Phoning home on the weekend was a treat. Cost in-state wasn't too expensive. But long distance rates really didn't come down to like they are now until the breakup of AT&T in 1984. That infusion of competition into the system made all the difference.

 

[Lincsong]

I remember in college in Hawaii in the late 1980's some kids had phones installed in their rooms, others relied on the payphone in the lobby. Probably 5 rooms out of 30 had phones. Anyway, most everyone else used that payphone as their number. So when someone wanted to call you they'd call the payphone, someone would pick up and answer then yell down the hall "hey David you got a call" then someone would come out of their room "is that for me?" "No it's for David" then the guy who came out of his room would relay it by yelling; "hey David get the phone" lol If the guy wasn't there, we'd just take a message and leave it in his room.

 

[smokinsiren]

my grandmother worked as an operator for the party line and has such great stories!...ahhh, the good ol' days!

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

In the old days, each phone line required a pair of individual wires on a pole, and they cost a lot to install and maintain. Once the technology was developed to put a large number of phone wires in a cable bundle, private lines became much more affordable.

If you have an antique phone, most of the time it will have 3 wires, the third wire was for the ringer, so that they could ring half the phones on a party line instead of all of them, but you still had to listen for your "ring", two short and a long or whatever it was.

By the 1960s, party line phones had ringers that used different frequencies. When you got a call, the phone company sent a ring signal that would cause your phone to ring, but not the other phones on the same line. These "Frequency ringers" are much more common on old Automatic Electric phones, which is why they often still work but won't ring on a modern line.

 

[WideBrimm]

As kids in the late fifties we'd go down by the railroad tracks and collect the glass and ceramic insulators which the linemen would toss down from the poles, then sell them to the local museum for $1.00 each. The museum would sell them to tourists as paper weights. The glass insulators were clear or various shades of green or blue. Its still possible to find them in antique stores! The good old days

 

[Lincsong]

In the old days, each phone line required a pair of individual wires on a pole, and they cost a lot to install and maintain. Once the technology was developed to put a large number of phone wires in a cable bundle, private lines became much more affordable.

If you have an antique phone, most of the time it will have 3 wires, the third wire was for the ringer, so that they could ring half the phones on a party line instead of all of them, but you still had to listen for your "ring", two short and a long or whatever it was.

By the 1960s, party line phones had ringers that used different frequencies. When you got a call, the phone company sent a ring signal that would cause your phone to ring, but not the other phones on the same line. These "Frequency ringers" are much more common on old Automatic Electric phones, which is why they often still work but won't ring on a modern line.

Interesting. I never knew that's why there were three wires going into the old phones.[huh]

 

[Mike in Seattle]

They were still around in Long Beach, CA in the early to mid 60s. All of the neighbors had them. We didn't because Dad also had an office at home and needed to be able to talk confidentially with clients (taxes and bookeeping) as well as clients not getting busy signals or his having to wait endlessly to place a call.