aboutbeyondlogin

exploring and collecting history online — science, technology, and industry

advanced

Artifacts

Bell System Memorial

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:22.
  • Artifacts
  • Computers/Information Technology
  • Consumer Technology
  • Contemporary (Post-WWII)
  • Images
  • Industrial/Military Technology
  • Links
  • Modern (18th-20th Century)
  • Personal
  • Primary Source
  • Secondary Source
URL: 

http://www.bellsystemmemorial.com/

Author: 
David Massey
Excerpt: 

Welcome to my website, the Bell System Memorial. For those of us who were old enough to remember the days of "Ma Bell" you should find plenty of memories on this website of the "good old days" - and perhaps some not-so-good old days - under the Bell System monopoly.

Review: 

A Switchboard to the History of the Telephone: The Bell System Memorial Website

In the golden days of the Bell telephone monopoly, telephones did not beep, chirp or yodel. Telephones made only one sound: they rang. In those golden days, there was no confusing variety of telephone providers, vying with each other to offer better long distance deals. There was one provider for local and long-distance calls, and this was Bell.

Ma Bell, the company of companies, was much more than a telephone provider: it was a symbol of American enterprise, of innovation and progress. Bell was not a company in the strict sense, but was an aggregate term for AT&T encompassing 24 Bell operating companies that provided local phone services. Under the umbrella was also the AT&T long distance service, an equipment manufacturing arm known as Western Electric, and the research and development division "Bell Laboratories." At the time of its break-up after de-regulation in 1984, Bell was the largest employer in the United States. Bell had not only provided a telephone for the majority of American households, but also a regular income for over a million workers.

The Bell System Memorial website is dedicated to an era of the telephone that was lost with de-regulation. It is a memorial to the technology of the telephone, and a memorial to the workers who made the phones ring. The website is a labor of love by David Massey, a private telephone enthusiast who was not associated with any of the former Bell companies.

The design of the website is clear and intelligent, resembling the functionality of a telephone switchboard: The main index site provides four options for different groups to enter the site: for students and teachers, for former employees, for historians and researchers, and for hobbyists and collectors. By providing these different entrance points, David Massey manages to address a wide audience, and at the same time tailors more specific information to a variety of groups.

When entering through the former employee button, visitors can access a fascinating collection of stories by former AT&T, Western Electric, Bell Labs, and Bell Operating Company employees. In this section, former employees recall "the wonders of working at Ma-Bell." They write about the stages of their careers at Bell, their most extraordinary work experiences, and the comradery among Bell employees. Not all stories reflect a harmonious relationship between the employer and the employees: Peter W. Koch, a former Western Electric installer, tells of a long strike in 1952 to raise the per diem rate for traveling installers by one dollar. In 1958, due to a recession, "about a third of the installers were laid off." Among them was Peter W. Koch, who "was never recalled." This section also gives a sense of the skills that were lost in the course of technological progress. Mary Clemence, who worked as a switchboard operator in Michigan in the mid 1960s, recalls her skills in handling a switchboard from the 1920s. "I've realized for some time that I had an incredibly unique experience using that kind of equipment, at a time when most of the country had direct dialing for local and long distance calls."

In addition to these stories, visitors can access a wealth of material through a navigation bar on the left hand side: a short history of the Bell logo, recordings of Jane Barbe's voice, Yellow Pages for telephone collectors and much more. A search engine helps to find pathways through Bell's A-Z. A What's New page keeps regular visitors up-to-date about additions to the site.

For historians of technology, for students and teachers, for anyone who has phone-nostalgia and wants to have a good time, the Bell System Memorial is the place to go. This website rings.

Katja Hering
Center for History and New Media
April 22, 2004

Map History/History of Cartography

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:22.
  • Artifacts
  • Contemporary (Post-WWII)
  • Early Modern (15th-18th Century)
  • Earth Sciences
  • Images
  • Links
  • Middle Ages (5th-15th Century)
  • Modern (18th-20th Century)
  • Professional Association
URL: 

http://ihr.sas.ac.uk/maps/

Excerpt: 

Whether you are an academic, family historian, collector, teacher or parent - welcome! All the worthwhile information about old maps can be found here, or from here. The 100 'pages' of this carefully organised site offer comment and guidance, and many, many links - selected for relevance and quality

University Museum of Zoology

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:22.
  • Artifacts
  • Contemporary (Post-WWII)
  • Educational
  • Exhibit
  • Life Sciences
  • Primary Source
  • Secondary Source
  • University
URL: 

http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/museum/index.htm

Author: 
Cambridge University
Excerpt: 

The museum houses an extensive collection of scientifically important zoological material designated as being of outstanding national and international significance by Re:source (formerly the MGC).
As part of the Department of Zoology we are also home to a thriving research community.

Barnard College Psychology Department: History of Psychology Collection

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:22.
  • Artifacts
  • Contemporary (Post-WWII)
  • Images
  • Medicine/Behavioral Science
  • Modern (18th-20th Century)
  • Primary Source
  • University
URL: 

http://www.barnard.columbia.edu/psych/museum/b_museum.html

Author: 
Thomas Perera Ph. D.: Historian / Museum Curator and Larry Heuer Ph. D.: Psychology Department Chair
Excerpt: 

This collection is dedicated to the preservation of the history and apparatus from the early days of the Barnard College Psychology Department. Barnard College, a four-year women's college, was founded in 1889 and the first courses in psychology were offered in 1906 over the strenuous objections of many faculty and administrators who maintained that psychology was not a fitting topic for young women. We have digitized the documents and apparatus which have been stored in the departmental archives for nearly 100 years and placed them on the internet in a form that makes them accessible to historians and students. This museum was created in 1995 and, as time permits, more of this information will be digitized and made available.

History of the Adler Planetarium and Museum

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:22.
  • Artifacts
  • Exhibit
  • Images
  • Modern (18th-20th Century)
  • Museum
  • Physical Sciences
  • Primary Source
URL: 

http://www.planetarium.cc/

Author: 
Glenn A. Walsh
Excerpt: 

The Zeiss II Planetarium Projector was the one and only planetarium projection system in service at The Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania U.S.A.
It was the last Zeiss Mark II to be constructed. The Carl Zeiss Company did not produce Zeiss Mark III (all are upgraded Mark II projectors) or Mark IV projectors until well into the 1950s.
Buhl Planetarium's Zeiss II was the fifth major planetarium projector in the Americas. Earlier Zeiss II projectors were installed at the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum in Chicago in 1930, Fels Planetarium of Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 1933, Griffith Observatory and Planetarium in Los Angeles in 1935, and the original Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in 1935

History of Iron Smelting

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:21.
  • Ancient (BCE-40 CE)
  • Artifacts
  • Images
  • Industrial/Military Technology
  • Personal
  • Secondary Source
URL: 

http://www.ironsmelting.net/

Author: 
Alexander Veldhuijzen
Excerpt: 

Read here:    Ethnoarchaeology of Ironsmelting, a comparison of several (sub-Saharan) African ethnographical cases of ironsmelting with the 10th - 8th century BC iron smelting remains from Tell Hammeh az-Zarqa in Jordan here. The description of each case can be read in a separate screen, by clicking on the name of the 'tribe' under the "the cases" header

Tribute to the Telephone

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:21.
  • Artifacts
  • Computers/Information Technology
  • Consumer Technology
  • Contemporary (Post-WWII)
  • Exhibit
  • Images
  • Industrial/Military Technology
  • Links
  • Modern (18th-20th Century)
  • Personal
  • Primary Source
URL: 

http://www.navyrelics.com/tribute/introduction.html

Author: 
David Massey
Excerpt: 

Welcome to the Telephone Tribute Website!  You'll find all sorts of telephone related web pages here on the history of the telephone, technical information, research resources, human interest stories, clubs, pictures, sound files, links, etc.  If this is your first time here, you might try starting out your navigation of my web site by first looking at my Table of Contents or using the search engine to your right.

Computer Museum - Amsterdam

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:21.
  • Artifacts
  • Computers/Information Technology
  • Contemporary (Post-WWII)
  • Exhibit
  • Modern (18th-20th Century)
  • Museum
  • University
URL: 

http://www.science.uva.nl/faculteit/museum/

Author: 
University of Amsterdam- Dr. EH Doojes
Excerpt: 

The emphasis of the collection of the Computer Museum is on technical and scientific electronic computing equipment from World War II up till today. However the collection also includes tools from the pre-computer era: mechanical, electromechanical and electronic calculators, slide rules and tables. There are some word-processors and a small collection of home computers. Accounting machines, game computers and the like are beyond the scope of this museum.
Most of the machines are in working order, equipped with original system and application software and fully documented.

Brief History of Typewriters

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:21.
  • Artifacts
  • Consumer Technology
  • Contemporary (Post-WWII)
  • Images
  • Modern (18th-20th Century)
  • Personal
  • Secondary Source
URL: 

http://xavier.xu.edu/~polt/tw-history.html

Author: 
Richard Holt
Excerpt: 

Typewriter patents date back to 1713, and the first typewriter proven to have worked was built by Pellegrino Turri in 1808 for his blind friend Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzono. Commercial production, however, began only with the "writing ball" of Danish pastor Malling Hansen (1870). This device looked rather like a pincushion. Nietzsche's mother and sister once gave him one for Christmas. He hated it.

Canadian Science and Technology Museum

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:21.
  • Artifacts
  • Computers/Information Technology
  • Consumer Technology
  • Contemporary (Post-WWII)
  • Early Modern (15th-18th Century)
  • Earth Sciences
  • Educational
  • Engineering
  • Exhibit
  • Government
  • Images
  • Life Sciences
  • Medicine/Behavioral Science
  • Middle Ages (5th-15th Century)
  • Modern (18th-20th Century)
  • Museum
  • Physical Sciences
  • Primary Source
URL: 

http://www.science-tech.nmstc.ca/english/index.cfm

Author: 
CSTM
Excerpt: 

In accordance with the mandate to study the "Transformation of Canada," the collection of the Canada Science and Technology Museum encompasses a broad cross-section of Canadian scientific and technological heritage. National in scope, this unique collection consists of artifacts, photographs, technical drawings, trade literature, and rare books, all of which are complemented and supported by library holdings of monographs and serials.

« first‹ previous123456789next ›last »

Echo is a project of the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
© Copyright 2008 Center for History and New Media