​               During 1918’s flu epidemic, a telephone operator takes protective measures. [Photo: Bettmann / Contributor/Getty Images]

A period when a pandemic temporarily shut down much of society. A citizenry confined to their homes, seeking a method to communicate with one another. A relatively recent technology that offered people a way to make contact with one another.
This isn’t a dispatch from now. All of these moments describe the influenza pandemic of 1918-19, which echoes our current unsettling moment. At the time, the telephone — not yet in a majority of American homes — was advertised as a method for people to safely communicate with friends and family.
​
That was the idea, anyway. But as Harry McCracken writes at Fast Company, the reality didn’t quite live up to those expectations. During the quarantine period of a century ago, events from classes to weddings were conducted over the phone. (Sound familiar?) But there was one major issue that prompted a snag in this plan. Specifically, telephone systems in those days relied upon operators. And operators, being human in the time of a pandemic, tended to get sick.

All of that led to a frantic search for more operators and, eventually, pleas from telephone companies for their customers to stay off the line unless their call was an urgent matter. Here, too, readers will find echoes of the present day — of a system’s infrastructure challenged by overwhelming volume.

Sometimes, historical parallels really do line up in uncanny ways.

[Article reprinted from Inside Hook. Written by Tobias Carroll. insidehook.com]

​On the left, an ad from Passaic, New Jersey’s Evening News for October 25, 1918, warns New York Telephone customers that operators might get nosy about their calls. On the right, from Gastonia, North Carolina’s Gastonia Gazette for October 18, 1918, an ad stresses the importance of handling calls for doctors and drug stores.

Back in June we shared our interview with Jamie Murray. Jamie, a Warner local, has worked with the museum on a variety of projects, including our mobile app.
 
As the voice behind the app, Jamie introduces our visitors to the fascinating history of telecommunications as he guides guests around the gallery.
 
Jamie has helped us in a variety of creative ways at the Telephone Museum. Whether we are referring to our introductory video, our mobile app, or our website, Jamie’s talents have helped us to build our brand.
 
For a fella with so many interests, we wanted to know how Jamie’s interests began.
 





​
[Graham] What was your first creative endeavor? 

[Jamie] Besides the usual drawing and painting at 2, maybe 3 years old, I think I was 4 and we’d visit  my grandparents’ house.  My grandpa had an old radio cabinet…the guts were taken out and I would open up the little doors on the front while sitting in the cabinet and I would do a puppet show for all the relatives. 

I grew up painfully shy. I didn’t talk much, but would express myself visually, usually through drawing. I continued drawing, sometimes painting, as I grew older and then in junior high I sold greeting cards door to door to raise enough money to buy a guitar. I taught myself how to play it and eventually got together with friends and we formed a basement band. I wound up playing and singing in rock bands for about 10 years, and it was while on the road, going to all different places, where I got interested in photography.  I would photograph a lot of the fans that would come out to see us, and when I eventually left music, I pursued a photography career doing primarily glamour and fashion. I wound up working for agencies and publishers.

In college I was taking a broadcasting class. I was fascinated with working in television (but not radio), and we all had to learn different positions in the studio. I never enjoyed directing or running audio but I did love running camera, and then an opening popped up as an intern at a local TV station. So, I got a part time job as an intern there and after interning for 2 summers, they hired me full time as a film editor and occasional cameraman. Over the years, I did more production camerawork, but I was primarily an editor my entire career in television.

When I retired from television and moved to New Hampshire, I continued my photography hobby, but with a lot less people here than in the big city, I started shooting landscapes instead of photographing people. I enjoyed that for a while, but then as I got older and the knees and the back started to go, then it became more of a chore to go out and shoot, but I would still do part time video production with a partner. We shot a video for the New Hampshire Telephone Museum, and everything went well, but apparently the voiceover guy we hired didn't work out too well, so to save time and money, I volunteered to do the narration, and it turned out well! 

I thought that would be the end of it, but then when the museum decided to do a tour app, they asked if I would do the voice over for that. I said ‘Sure!” And then the company that made the app liked what I did and they asked if I'd be interested in doing more. I said okay and they would send me a script about once every 4 or 5 weeks, which was a nice occasional, fun, part time job in my retirement, But then the apps took off, they started writing more and more, and they kept sending me more and more scripts. In the 4 years I’ve been working for them I’ve done probably 75 tours, and they have plans to do about one a week in the coming year!

And then just recently a local company was doing an instructional video for a corporation, and their voiceover guy didn’t work out. The production company heard that I did voice overs locally and they asked if I would try it. It turned out really well and so now, all of a sudden, I’ve got a voiceover career going and I’m supposed to be enjoying retirement! 

But no matter what job I do, I’ve always had a sideline hobby to keep my creative interests flowing, whether it’s photography, or painting, illustration, or even voice over work, but my big passion since I was a little kid was building scale models, primarily model ships. I probably spend ¾ of my time researching the ship and then the rest of the time is in building it. And to be honest, I’ve never actually finished a model ship! I’ve got 3 or 4 models in different stages of being built because my enjoyment is in the research and the building. I mean, once it’s done it just sits there and collects dust, right, so why not enjoy the journey?
 
To see some of Jamie’s photos, please visit our photo gallery.

​It’s 2021, the year of the photo.

Everyone with a phone effectively has a camera within reach. The market is flooded with hundreds of image-capturing devices in addition to our smartphones like drones, tablets, GoPros, nannycams, and webcams. With all of this technology at our fingertips, we’re capable of taking a lot of photos. So, we wondered, “How many photos will be taken this year? And how will people store them all?”

How Many Photos will be Taken in 2021?
According to Keypoint Intelligence, people will take 1,440,000,000,000 photos in 2021… that’s over 1.4 trillion.

Keypoint Intelligence also projected next year’s photo-count and the numbers are, well, take a look for yourself..........

2021 = 1.4397 trillion
2022 = 1.5593 trillion

As technology improves, taking digital photos will only get easier which even more photos!

What’s Happening to All Those Photos?

Keypoint Intelligence data on this as well. In addition to how many photos people take, they also track the number of photos stored each year.

​With numbers like these, it’s critical that people have a way to organize, manage, and protect their pictures. If you’ve ever scrolled through your phone’s camera roll, you’ve noticed the digital clutter that can quickly take over.

Likewise, looking over dozens of nearly-identical pictures shot on burst mode, or hundreds of purely functional shots (there’s your airport parking stall number from Thanksgiving 2001) can quickly become overwhelming. And tedious. Some of those unnecessary shots are eating up valuable storage space. And the keepers? Depending on your storage preferences, they are just one dropped phone or house fire away from being lost forever.
​
So ask yourself, “How am I organizing and protecting my photos?” 

This post has been copied in part for Mylio.com
**https://focus.mylio.com/tech-today/how-many-photos-will-be-taken-in-2021
​
*Data Source: Keypoint Intelligence / InfoTrends Worldwide Consumer Photos Captured and Stored

About Mylio:
It started with the digital clutter. It was getting out of hand.
We’d been using technology for years to capture photos and other memories, but the sheer volume was overwhelming us. We were losing track. If life is a big picture, then its pixels were scattered all over the place – on our phones, laptops, and any number of objects in boxes in the garage. There had to be a better way.

What if we could bring all those pixels back together again? What if we could gather the record of everything that had happened in our lives in one place, and carry it everywhere, on any device?

That’s why we’ve built the Mylio photo app – a memory organizer for bringing the story of your life together again, to share with others anytime.
But that was just the beginning.
Because even after you get all your photos straight, that supercomputer in your pocket (aka ‘telephone’) is still way underutilized. Mostly it just connects with a 3rd-party server someplace. The cloud. That’s where the heavy lifting happens.
But what if you actually used the processing power of your own device? What if there were tools that let you create and manage your files on any device, then sync them without the cloud? What if you could be confident that your privacy was intact, because your files weren’t leaving the confines of your own device network? Wouldn't that be a game changer?
We think so. That’s why we’re building Mylio as a platform to manage more than just photos, and build it so that only you control how your data is managed. We’re building an internet file system over the world’s first mesh network. From completely private, to 3rd party cloud-connected, the choice is yours.
Today, the Mylio photo app is a virtual, visual Swiss Army knife that helps anyone access, edit, organize, protect, and share their memories. Tomorrow – well, we’re just getting started. If you value privacy, choice, and control, we invite you to join us on the journey.

Mobile apps have always been a fantastic way for museums to showcase their artifacts with visitors. Although we've become known for our guided tours, our mobile app offers guests another way to explore the gallery if they preferred to do so on their own.

If you're a local and you have listened to our mobile app, you may recognize the voice behind the app as that of  voiceover-talent Jamie Murray.

Jamie was the first person we turned to when we decided to create our mobile app. Jamie, along with another local talent, Joe Eisenberg, helped us create our introductory video. So it just seemed logical to ask Jamie to read the script we'd written.

There are a variety of stages in the creation of a mobile app. There is also a great deal of work necessary to make all the parts come together. We wanted to learn more about the process from Jamie.

​Here is a snippet from a recent interview.

*We've updated our app over the years and it's now been downloaded hundreds of times. 

[Graham] What skills did you need to learn to become a voiceover professional? 

[Jamie] Coming from a background in television, I had a basic understanding of audio and working with scripts in production, but when I started voiceover work, I had no clue as far as what equipment to get or how to edit audio (how to tweak it with compression, equalization, etc), so it’s been a “learn as you go” process.

I had a microphone and a basic editing program that we used in video production, and then I read everything I could find on voiceover work, what to do [and] what not to do. And even now, I listen to some of the early recordings I had done and they sound really terrible because I pretty much didn’t know what I was doing!

Basically, you need a microphone, good headphones, and an editing program to get stuff done. You have to have a solid base in acting talent so that you can express what you’re reading…you don’t want it to sound like you’re reading, it should sound as if you’re talking to somebody standing in front of you. And, like any talent, hopefully you get better as you experience the work. Practice makes perfect! 

[Graham] ​How do you prepare for a project physically?  

[Jamie] The first thing I do is read the script, making notes of words I have to research for proper pronunciation. Also, most of the scripts I get are not written by scriptwriters. There’s a big difference between sentences that are written for a thesis and sentences written to be spoken. I once had a sentence that covered 3½ lines on the page, with no punctuation, so I had to figure the best places to pause and take a breath. Also, to make the narration more “conversational”, I try to “deprofessionalize” it by shortening words, using contractions, or by “humanizing” the script – I tend to say “gonna” instead of “going to”, or “lemme” instead of “let me”.

Back in [my] TV production days, the scriptwriter always had to read the script out loud before turning it in, so they could see if what they wrote was speakable.

You must stay hydrated. I drink a glass of water 30-45 minutes before I start, keep water with lemon by my side, and take breaks every 20-30 minutes, not only to rest the vocal cords, but also to relax the eyes, after straining to read the script on the computer screen. Some say a green apple helps the throat. I’ve found that Ricola natural herb throat lozenges really work in keeping my throat in order, though I have to remind myself to let them dissolve and not to chew them.

Just like before a gym workout or jog, you have to warm up. Humming a tune is good, reciting tongue-twisters are good, too. Repeating troublesome words over and over can help – one word that I constantly stumble over is “rural”. I really hate that word!!

I have sinus problems, and allergy season is the worst. If I think I’m going to have a troublesome day with sinuses, I’ll use a spray like Flonase Sensimist…it’s half the normal dose of Flonase, you can use it every day, if needed, and it keeps me sounding not so nasally.

To keep things “conversational” while narrating a tour, it helps to imagine I’m speaking to an old friend who came to visit and I’m showing them one of my favorite places.

You're probably familiar with the term planned obsolescence. The electronics that surround us have an expiration date. Eventually—and probably sooner than you think—they'll stop working and join the global pile of ewaste.
​
The amount of ewaste in the world is incalculable, but one thing is for certain: it contributes to climate change and is hazardous to humans. Abandoned electronics crowd landfills and their toxic metals and plastics can leech into soil and water or pollute the air when burned. Getting rid of them, whether it's because they no longer spark joy or quite literally have started to spark, is a task that needs to be handled properly.

Recycling is often presented as the solution, and while it's not the complete answer to what to do with ewaste, it is often the best option at our disposal. Toward that end, we've assembled this guide to places that will take your old or dead electronics, and either turn them into something useful for someone else or make sure they're safely recycled.


Best Buy
Nationwide electronics retailer Best Buy has, arguably, the best recycling program going. Its website details exactly what the store will take, and a drop-down menu in each category gets specific for your state. You can bring in up to three items per day. Most of them can be recycled for free. Some items might make you eligible for a discount or get you a trade-in deal on something else. There is also a $29.99 haul-away service for large appliances or TVs if you're purchasing a replacement at Best Buy. It's $99.99 if you're not buying anything.

Staples
When you're picking up printer paper at Staples, you can drop off lots of electronic items for recycling. The office supplies seller has a free electronics recycling program that covers a large list of categories. You can bring in up to seven items per store per day. Businesses can use Staples' recycling program for their old tech, ink and toner cartridges, and even those K-cups that their coffee machines spit out.

Apple Trade In
Your old Apple devices can go back from whence they came. If your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or Mac is in working order, you may receive an Apple gift card for it. And if it's broken, you can still recycle it for free. The Apple Trade In program isn't just for Apple devices. You can get a prepaid shipping label sent to you so you can mail in Android devices, printers, and more.

Amazon Recycling Program
Alexa devices, Kindles, and any other Amazon-branded electronics you have can be recycled for free through a third-party recycling program that partnered with Amazon. You fill out a form about your device, and you'll receive a UPS shipping label.

Call2Recycle
Call2Recycle focuses on batteries and cell phones and directs people to local recycling drop-off partners, including places like Home Depot and Lowe's.

Earth911
Earth911 is a nationwide clearinghouse for recycling programs of all kinds. The electronics category is an A-to-Z (well, A-to-V for vinyl records) guide of drop-off and mail-in programs that you can search by ZIP code.
 
 Written by Chandra Steele for pcmag.com
 
[Source: https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-recycle-your-technology] Last updated: April, 2021

By John Herlihy

Please, someone, give me back the old phone booth,
Sitting on the street corner like an old wisdom tooth.
From our vantage point clutching our smart phones,
The old closet could now serve as coffin for old bones.
They no longer stand where once they always used to be,
In a drug store or diner, connecting the world for a fee.

Like Pa’s old wood-paneled station wagon in the yard,
Or Ma’s old rot-iron frying pan sizzling strips of white lard,
Like our first TV, us children watching thru magnifying glass.
Listening to the rosary on the stand-up radio after Sunday Mass,
I used to iron Pa’s pajamas using a heavy iron heated on coals.
And threw newspapers onto porches between telephone poles.

This was a life that in my childhood I could happily call mine.
At the corner store, I bought bags of penny candy for only a dime.
When I grew up, I began to live the expat life of a vagabond;
I flitted through all the capitals of Europe as if by magic wand.
But whenever I returned to the US and home for the summer,
I called from the airport phone booth to speak first with my mother.

Perhaps there still exists somewhere an old phone booth of reflected glass,
On display in a modern museum presenting artifacts from the past.
I suspect paper routes no longer exist, though watching TV is still a habit,
Saying the rosary after Mass now probably the sole prevue of an abbot.
No one talks on the phone anymore; they take selfies on smart phones
They fly thru the air taking Gopro shots from their magical drones.

[source: https://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewPoetry.asp?id=338499]

​Here in the States, telephone booths are rare. You might be lucky enough to find a partially dismantled booth on the side of a highway, but it’s, most likely, missing the most important part – the phone.
 
Telephone booths have been around for over one hundred years. Inventor William Gray designed the telephone booth after realizing that making a call outside the home was difficult, if not impossible. To remedy this hassle, booths were eventually installed in a menagerie of public places such as railroad stations, banks, and hotels. 

Because the foot traffic in these bustling areas generated a consistent revenue, phonebooths made enough money to pay the attendance salary. 

Oh, did we not mention that interesting little factoid yet?
 
Well, telephone booths were operated by an attendant!
 
Unlike the coin operated payphones, we grew accustomed to, the first phone booths were managed and watched over. The attendant would lock a customer into the wooden booth (which in the early days had a carpeted floor) until that individual’s phone call was completed. That would ensure that the customer didn’t make a hasty retreat without making a payment.[1]

​We are fortunate to have several telephone booths in the gallery, including this month’s object-of-interest.
 
This is an early 1900’s telephone booth with an S. H. Couch Company magneto wall type phone.
 
It was a non-coin operated telephone and the booth itself was made of white oak and was double walled which meant it offered whoever was inside a good deal of privacy. That was important to Judge J. John Fox, a judge with the Boston Municipal Court.
 
Judge Fox was said to have frequently used this telephone booth to conduct his work. So much, in fact, that when the Judge retired, this phone booth was given to him as a parting gift.

​

2. We all enjoy a good story and isn’t that what history really is? Museums offer an incredible way to learn about so many things. This vital resource is beneficial to all age groups, young and old.

3. Museums offer a variety of programming which often help to support other local businesses. Our popular special exhibit, “The ART of Conversation” helped to introduce local artists to a wider audience. The museum offered not only a networking opportunity but a chance to sell some of their paintings and sculptures.

4. Museums have gift shops which means they offer another opportunity for employment and a place to support your local economy. While our gift shop is small, we sell different items from craftspeople here in Warner, NH.

5. Museums are hugely important to the overall health of a State’s tourism efforts. It may surprise you to learn that we host visitors from all over the United States, as well as places like Germany, Japan, Norway, and India. 

                                                                                                *********​

​The object we'd like to share with you this month is a train order hoop!
 
A precursor to the “Y” Stick, the train order hoop was a tool used to deliver telegraphs to trains passing by.

As a telegrapher saw a train approach his station, he would alert the dispatcher who then decided if there was a train order to be issued. If so, the telegrapher would copy the order, roll it up and clip it to the hoop, and then run to the edge of the train platform so that men on the train could receive the orders. Telegraphers delivered these hoop-bound orders to different people at different sections of the train -- at the front, the engineer, and toward the rear, the conductor.
 
Unfortunately, as you can probably tell by looking at the above photo of the train order hoop, it was an unwieldy tool. The person receiving an order on the train would have to swiftly catch hold of the hoop by getting an arm through it, hope the telegrapher let go of it quickly enough, and bring the whole tool aboard to unclip the train order and toss the hoop back out onto the tracks. There was a massive potential for injuries both to trainmen and telegraphers alike depending on how well the maneuver was performed.

​Eventually, the train order hoop was replaced by the Y Stick, upon which a telegrapher could thread string around and to which they could attach an order that the trainman would then grab, rather than the entire hoop. 

If you've ever visited our museum or taken our guided tour, then you know we love talking about operators! Switchboard operators were essential to the success of the telephone industry, but as modern technology progressed, operators became obsolete. 

One man who played a major role in this obsolescence was Almon B. Strowger, the inventor of the the automatic dialing device.

​Pictured below is the Stowger 11-Digit Dial Wall Telephone from about 1905. The dial has eleven digits, numbered 0 through 9 as well as an additional dial position for “long distance,” which would connect the person dialing to an operator when they wanted to place calls outside of the local exchange.

Strowger was born on February 11, 1830, in Penfield, New York.

Growing up, he was notorious for inventing things, especially if it got him and his siblings out of doing their daily chores.

After spending time in both the military and as a teacher, Strowger bought an undertaking business in Kansas in June of 1882, and it was with this career change that he was able to focus more on his inventions.

Though we don’t know for certain what prompted Stowger to design the automatic dialer, we do know of a story his relative Ronald Stowger told that shows a connection between experiences in his life and the desire for technology that bypassed operators.

​According to Ronald, Almon was losing business due to the interference of a telephone operator who was romantically involved with a rival undertaker. Stowger believed this woman to be diverting calls for his business to this competitor, and he was fueled by this to invent a device that would allow folks to directly call other people, without the need for an operator to connect them. Thus, he began to experiment and create, and the first automatic telephone exchange was installed successfully in La Porte, Indiana on November 3, 1892. ​