Phone Book Art Part 2

Not long after the invention of the telephone in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell, the first edition of some type of phone book was released.

It came out and was distributed in New Haven by the New Haven District Telephone Company on February 1878 and consisted of a one page, card board list with fifty names of businesses that were in the possession of a phone.

It was divided into residential, professional, miscellaneous, and essential service listings and only gave names, but no numbers yet and the connection had to be made through an operator.

The first edition of the Yellow Pages appeared in 1886 and was created by Reuben H. Donnelly. It covered Chicago, Illinois and listed businesses by name and phone number in different, specific categories pertaining to the provided products and services.

Millions of phone directories are distributed each year and only a fraction of those are being recycled.

With phone numbers easily found online nowadays, you better save them while you can and reuse them for art before they entirely disappear from the scene; the phone book's days might be numbered!