The Nation at Your Fingertips (1951)

The Nation at Your Fingertips (1951)

How direct long distance dialing made the U.S. a smaller place, and how instantaneous direct communication between Americans without operator assistance became possible.

Producer: Audio Productions, Inc.
Sponsor: American Telephone and Telegraph Co. (AT&T), Bell System
Audio/Visual: Sd, B&W
Keywords: Communication: Telephone; Infrastructure: Information

Category:

Education

Tags:

• The
• Nation
• at
• Your
• Fingertips
• 1951
• Audio
• Productions
• American
• Telephone
• Telegraph
• AT&T
• Bell
• System
• operator
• assistance
• Communications
• Business
• Computer
• Science
• Engineering
• Humanities
• Media

[thatfatboiforu]

Holy fuck, Maine still has 207 as its area code. Trippy.

[seatboi]

YUP...and phones lasted 75+years back then! I've had a cell-phone for a year & had to replace the cheap, thin, flinsy, plastic piece of junk 3 times! I sure wish quality control was the same now as it was back then! I just HATE MODERN JUNK!!

[nuclearbigdaddy]

new fangled

[DoubleDutchBust]

measles or chicken pox?

[rsp196607]

318 or 415?

[SallySallySallySally]

One other comment: Notice the "Sally's" phone number is "318 GA5-2368."

The line number "2368" is a long-time stand-in for phone numbers in movies and TV shows. For example, "Jim Rockford's" phone number shown on the phone in the program's intro was "311-555-2368."

[SallySallySallySally]

Wow! This was long before national use of DDD. In this film, they're showing 318 as the area code for San Francisco, while its current area code, 415, is listed for Oakland. A couple of years after this film was made, equipment was installed that allowed 415 to cover the entire Bay Area and 318 was withdrawn for future use.

318 was assigned to its current area, Louisiana, in 1957 when the state's original area code, 504, ran out of room.