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Give Me a Ring

by The Library of Congress

Telephones used to have a singular purpose - making a call! They mostly stayed in place - on a table, a desk, a wall, or even inside a phone booth on the side of the road. Take a look back at images of all kinds of phones in the collections of the Prints & Photographs Division.

26 photos · 1.1K views

Telephone and directory. Dubuque, Iowa (LOC)

Wife of ranch owner on party line phone. Quarter Circle 'U' Ranch, Montana (LOC)

[Bank of telephones, LaGuardia Airport, New York] (LOC)

Superintendent of logging operation telephones. A network of telephone wires connects different places of logging operations in the woods. Long Bell Lumber Company, Cowlitz County, Washington. He is wearing "tin pants" which are kahki pants that have been

Garments hanging near telephone in Rustan brothers' farm near Dickens, Iowa (LOC)

[William Howard Taft, three-quarter-length portrait, seated, facing front, smiling while talking on a telephone as he receives news of his nomination as the 1908 Republican presidential candidate from President Theodore Roosevelt] (LOC)

[Pay telephone] Santa Barbara, the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California (LOC)

Making a date (LOC)

A rare sight in America late in 2012: a working payphone in a rural setting, minus any graffiti. This one stood along U.S. 395 in the tiny settlement of Ravendale, north of Susanville, California (LOC)

Melba & wireless phone (LOC)

[Senators John Warner and Chuck Robb talking on mobile phones with Jesse Jackson in background] (LOC)

A live wire (LOC)

[Great Hall. Detail of putti (electrician and astronomer) on the Grand staircase by Philip Martiny. Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C.] (LOC)

[First Lady Betty Ford talking on the telephone in the living quarters of the White House, Washington, D.C.] (LOC)

[Students constructing telephones at Hampton Institute] (LOC)

Alexander Graham Bell at the opening of the long-distance line from New York to Chicago (LOC)

Hello! This is liberty speaking - billions of dollars are needed and needed now (LOC)

Is that you, Mama? (LOC)

[Young people wait in line to use a telephone booth, Belgrade, Yugoslavia] (LOC)

[Man in car using a drive-in telephone, on Route 40, north of Baltimore, Maryland] (LOC)

[Man, full-length portrait, seated on stool outside a telephone booth, phone raised to ear, view of buildings in background] (LOC)

Media (LOC)

Opening of new trans continental phone line, 1/17/27 (LOC)

Keep mum - the world has ears (LOC)