Object Details for Candlestick Phone: Used between 1890s and 1940s.
This telephone did not belong to the McFaddin family, it is a prop that we allow visitors to touch when they visit our museum. However, the McFaddin family did own a telephone similar to this one. This type of telephone was used by Ida and Mamie McFaddin during the first world war when they called friends to assist with volunteering. These telephones were made of wood and had a mouthpiece for speaking into and an earpiece (also known as a receiver) for listening, which was held to the speaker’s ear. This ear piece rested on a hook attached to the phone stand when the telephone was not in use. The candlestick phone was either invented by Stromberg Carlson or by Almon Stowger. They both take credit for inventing this communication tool.

Listen to this telephone’s ringtone in the recording!

Object Details for Telephone Screen: Made around 1900
This object belonged to the McFaddin family and is part of our collection. The hinged screen closes to encase the phone. The shape is of a woman and child holding up the Earth.

The rotary dial was patented in the 1890s but not widely used until the biggest phone service provider, Bell Systems, offered a rotary dial phone in 1919. This was the most popular type of telephone until the 1970s, when touch tone technology was preferred by users. With rotary phones, users physically dialed phone numbers by turning the wheel for each number of the phone number.

The cradle phone’s ear and mouthpiece are one unit that rests on the telephone box in a cradle. Cradle phones became popular in the 1920s. Their style changed over time. Early cradle phones were made of plastic.

The phone in this picture belonged to Mamie McFaddin-Ward. It has a spiral cord connecting the ear and mouthpiece to the cradle. The phone plugs into the wall, attached by a long cord. This phone was purchased by the family in the 1960s. Although the ladies did not use this silver handled phone to call their friends during World War II, they did use a similar style cradle phone with a rotary dial.

Listen to this telephone’s ringtone in the recording.

The interphone system is a communication method limited to the inside of the home or property. For example, you couldn't call your relatives outside of the house from the interphone. That's what the telephones were used for. The interphone, much like its newer cousin the intercom, allowed residents of the house to call into other rooms or even other buildings on the property. This interphone has 10 buttons, meaning the user could choose which interphone location to connect to, even as far away as the Carriage House where the horse-drawn carriages, then later the automobiles, could be readied for a pickup by a driver.
This interphone is made from wood and metal. It contains an ear piece for listening to the person on the other end, and a mouthpiece for speaking into.

Object Details:

Wooden rectangular box w/ brass bell on top, mounted on wall. Circular disk in top half center of front of box (mouthpiece). Rectangular button board in lower half of box w/ ten black push buttons in 2 rows. Ten long, narrow, metal plates to the right and left of buttons (name plates). On the left side of the box is a "Y" shaped lever or hook in which rests a trumpet shaped ear-piece. The ear piece has a cord extending from the narrow end which has been severed at the opposite end.

Ida talks to her friend, Mrs. Wilder, about volunteering with the local Red Cross chapter to make surgical bandages to ship to hospitals on battlefields.

Transcript:
[Ida speaks into phone] “Just a minute”
[Ida speaks to audience] “Hello There, I’m calling friends to help with our Red Cross bandage drive. Ladies from all over come together to make bandages for the soldiers. Organizing help is so easy now that most everyone has a phone in their home, unlike in 1917 during the first world war.”
[Ida speaks into phone] “Just a minute, I’ll get right back to you.”
[Ida speaks to audience] “My phone number is 94, but some people have longer phone numbers because they’re new to town. My friend, Mrs. Wilder has a phone number of 9268. Beaumont, Texas has really changed since phone lines were installed in 1894.”
[Ida speaks into phone] “Are you still there? Can you hear me now?”

Ida kept detailed notes about her Red Cross volunteer work in this ledger. She wrote down the names and phone numbers of other volunteers, she included the budget for projects, and kept lists of materials she needed to buy for the projects.

Historians ask many questions when they come across an object like this.
They ask “who used the object?”
They ask “when was this object used?”
They ask “what was this object’s purpose?”
They ask “how was this object used?”
They ask “why was this object used?”

Then, historians use those questions to connect this object to what they already know about an historical topic such as World War II. This simple book, used by Ida McFaddin, is proof that women were involved in the war effort and felt strongly about supporting the government and soldiers in a way that made sense to them, making bandages.