#42: “How May I Connect Your Call?”
This piece of vanished technology is going way, way back. If you’re of a certain age, you may have some vague memories of switchboard operators. Whenever you would have to make a call, a phone operator would have to physically direct your call to its designated recipient by plugging a phone plug into the correct jack.
Switchboard operators existed until the 1970s, but they began to fade out way back in the 1930s. Phones had the technology to connect to a recipient directly, but it took a while for that technology to reach all corners of the globe. Now, we take it for granted that we can dial someone’s phone number and reach them directly. It’s pretty wild to think that we had to have a middleman or woman doing that work for us at one point in time.