"A MIRACLE FOR MRS. SMITH" HOW THE TELEPHONE WORKS WESTERN ELECTRIC BELL SYSTEM NETWORK 64414
Produced by Wilding Picture Productions, Inc. in the late 1940s, A Miracle for Mrs. Smith is a short film that shows viewers how the Bell telephone system works and how Western Electric manufacturers the materials and products used in the telephone industry. The film opens with footage of a football game: the quarterback throws a touchdown pass and the crowd cheers. Football players practice the touchdown pass on the practice field (01:10). Mrs. Smith, an American housewife, sits in her living room (01:51). The film tracks Mrs. Smith’s phone call to the butcher along the miles of telephone line. A long-distance telephone operator puts calls through while sitting at the switchboard (04:16). An instructor for the Bell communications system talks to female trainees about the Bell system organization. The film shows the Bell Telephone Laboratories building (06:13), where scientists work on new models of telephones. Bell phone designers fit a phone handset to a man’s head (07:33). Women work on the assembly line making Bell telephones (09:09). A man starts the production of telephone wire (10:05). Two men take copper wire and pare it down into smaller gauge wiring. A man puts a protective steel case on a phone cable that will go underwater (11:09). The film shows a town’s central office switchboard (11:55). Men and women go to work at a Western Electric building (12:10). Vacuum tubes are made and used to amplify voice calls (12:43). A woman works with crystals that will be used for radio and telephone circuits (13:23). Women inspect parts used in the telephone industry as part of quality control efforts (14:22). The film shows viewers the inside of one of Western Electric’s remote repeater stations (15:28). A train moves through Western Electric’s yard, which is filled with raw materials (17:01). A team of installers set up equipment for a telephone company’s central office (18:24). Reels of cable are moved by crane. Men load supplies into boxes along a conveyer belt. Footage shows a hurricane hitting a community (20:35), then Western Electric teams repairing the community’s damaged telephone lines.
Western Electric Company (WE, WECo) was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company that served as the primary supplier to AT&T from 1881 to 1996. The company was responsible for many technological innovations and seminal developments in industrial management. It also served as the purchasing agent for the member companies of the Bell System.
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Fun blast from the past, my dad worked for Bell Labs in the late 50s, he was a semiconductor physicist who eventually started his own high tech company in 1977, Datacube in Peabody Massachusetts
I love watching these old movie reels with the young ones and they have some great questions sometimes. Thank you !
When we manufactured our own things.
What a detailed, informative film. Thank you.
"And then there was that nice lady in long distance that was so clever in locating Mr. Smith in Springfield, helping confirm her suspicions of his hussy secretary Janet."
@danam2584
28 күн бұрын
I was thinking the same thing!🤣
🎶We've come a long ways, baby.🎶
Good one, thank you.
@PeriscopeFilm
5 жыл бұрын
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The "all American" portrait of a telephone handset, with metric measurements!
Yeah, in few years, when they're ready to replace Mrs. Smith's 302 w/ a 500 set. She'll be able to get a colored one, to match her decor!
Another fine film about the ancient technology of the telephone. ☎️
This is one of the old films that leave people thinking that Bell is the only telephone business organization. That's not the case. There are plenty of non-Bell telephone companies in service, but they are not mentioned, known as independents. Of course, their lines are interconnected.
@MyUserTubeAccount
2 жыл бұрын
because they're ALL on "The Bell System" guy, and these videos have mentioned the independent companies plenty
I wonder how much it was to rent that phone along with that long distance?
Mrs. Smith wants her telephone. Yet Mr. Me is forced by AT&T to have a phone I don't want because it comes with my cable and WiFi
3:25 oooohhhh!!!! F -bomb, Mrs Smith!!!
About 15 seconds in and they already interrupted it with an ad!
@kathleenking47
Жыл бұрын
Phones had 2 digit central LETTERS with 5 digit numbers
@95blahblahhaha
5 ай бұрын
It took me about 1½ mins before a commercial came smh😂😂😂
@95blahblahhaha
5 ай бұрын
@@kathleenking47wtf are you talking about
What stadium appears in the first minute?
I've got a comment for you. I sit down to enjoy watching these old films and end up getting angry. I get angry because all I hear about at my Government job during meetings and reading our employee publications as well as our Union newsletter is, how oppressed women were in the past. Then I watch movies like these made in the 1940's and early 1950's, and I see more women working in technical, scientific, and engineering type jobs and wonder how all this "women are oppressed" crap got started? There are more women working in highly skilled jobs than there are men!
@dwightl5863
5 жыл бұрын
Probably the "oppressed" part is that the women were making less money than their male counterparts. IMHO
@MisterPersuasion
5 жыл бұрын
That wouldn't make any sense. In most of those scenes there were no men. The entire work force was female. Of course they would make less than their male supervisors as it should be.
@michaelrichardson1898
4 жыл бұрын
Fake news abc NBC msnbc liberal news media!
@kathleenking47
Жыл бұрын
These dats.. Years ago, they'd rather he close townhome. And be a Mrs. Too many men, arent around tools these days, unless in rural areas
Wow, so awesome, we sure did amazing things, it is so bad that us as a nation have let our appointed members we vote for, especially now have let us down from years before until extremely overboard now, wake up all, let's being us back to American pride! !
You gotta crank up the volume. Can't hear for choot.
My car warranty has expired?
And today, do you think you get instruction like this? Hell no. You are lucky to get one page, in chinese (never english)...