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For your viewing amusement.
Operators: Where I grew up there were still local operators but mostly they handled long distance calls and did directory searches for people without access to a phone book. My grandmother in Kansas had an old-fashioned phone on the wall with a crank handle instead of a dial. That part of the country obviously still had local operators doing their old jobs in front of an old-time switch board like in the video. No one knew that even the phone books would eventually be gone. Two bits of trivia: early on, all telephone operators were men. You hear the song Pennsylvania 6 5000 in the background, which people in the day knew meant the phone number was PE6-5000. The phone company (Bell was a monopoly most places) phased out the old mnemonic exchanges for all numbers on the basis that operators (who no one was using anymore) could understand and remember all numbers easier. You be the judge.
Typist: Teaching us all typing in Junior High ruined the world, or maybe not. Basically you don't need a typist for a business e-mail. Actually this part of the video reminds me that trade schools about the time I was finishing grad school were advertising on TV to get kids to sign up to learn how to operate key punch machines. I think I last time I saw a machine that would read a punch card was seven or eight years earlier.
Milk man: We had a milk man from the local dairy till I was in high school. I don't remember ours ever delivering in the quart bottles shown in the video. We got half-gallons that were heavy and slippery. It was really best to pick them up with both hands. If you ordered ahead you could get chocolate milk, and butter. Not sure whether our service ever had eggs... When I was little it was fun once in a while to ask the milk man for a piece of ice when he came by. It was clear ice, obviously chipped from a large block. They needed it for those houses where no one would be home for the delivery. They had boxes (usually set on back porches) that would hold four half-gallons bottles and some ice to keep it cool till folks got home.
Soda jerk: They only had soda jerks in built up areas. By my time drug stores would have a place called a lunch counter a place to sit down and have a coke and a hot dog and maybe a piece of pie (a busy person's diner) and they still sometimes called that a soda fountain, and sometimes they called the guy working there a soda jerk, but I don't think it was quite the same thing anymore. No soda jerks now, but no shortage of other jerks. ;o)
Western Union Messengers: Like passenger trains, Western Union telegrams went out of fashion most places with the end of World War Two. Getting a telegram usually meant very bad news during the war. After the war most people got telephones and had no real need of telegraph service. Western Union still will accept and send money across the country and across world. But even that has had a bad reputation for decades.
Operators: Where I grew up there were still local operators but mostly they handled long distance calls and did directory searches for people without access to a phone book. My grandmother in Kansas had an old-fashioned phone on the wall with a crank handle instead of a dial. That part of the country obviously still had local operators doing their old jobs in front of an old-time switch board like in the video. No one knew that even the phone books would eventually be gone. Two bits of trivia: early on, all telephone operators were men. You hear the song Pennsylvania 6 5000 in the background, which people in the day knew meant the phone number was PE6-5000. The phone company (Bell was a monopoly most places) phased out the old mnemonic exchanges for all numbers on the basis that operators (who no one was using anymore) could understand and remember all numbers easier. You be the judge.
Typist: Teaching us all typing in Junior High ruined the world, or maybe not. Basically you don't need a typist for a business e-mail. Actually this part of the video reminds me that trade schools about the time I was finishing grad school were advertising on TV to get kids to sign up to learn how to operate key punch machines. I think I last time I saw a machine that would read a punch card was seven or eight years earlier.
Milk man: We had a milk man from the local dairy till I was in high school. I don't remember ours ever delivering in the quart bottles shown in the video. We got half-gallons that were heavy and slippery. It was really best to pick them up with both hands. If you ordered ahead you could get chocolate milk, and butter. Not sure whether our service ever had eggs... When I was little it was fun once in a while to ask the milk man for a piece of ice when he came by. It was clear ice, obviously chipped from a large block. They needed it for those houses where no one would be home for the delivery. They had boxes (usually set on back porches) that would hold four half-gallons bottles and some ice to keep it cool till folks got home.
Soda jerk: They only had soda jerks in built up areas. By my time drug stores would have a place called a lunch counter a place to sit down and have a coke and a hot dog and maybe a piece of pie (a busy person's diner) and they still sometimes called that a soda fountain, and sometimes they called the guy working there a soda jerk, but I don't think it was quite the same thing anymore. No soda jerks now, but no shortage of other jerks. ;o)
Western Union Messengers: Like passenger trains, Western Union telegrams went out of fashion most places with the end of World War Two. Getting a telegram usually meant very bad news during the war. After the war most people got telephones and had no real need of telegraph service. Western Union still will accept and send money across the country and across world. But even that has had a bad reputation for decades.
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