In 1872 inventor Elisha Gray and partner Enos Barton formed Western Electric. The Western Electric company manufactured an assortment of electrical products and ultimately formed a close partnership with Western Union as a supplier of equipment for their growing business.
Western Union purchased the shares of Elisha Gray in 1875. During this time Western Union continued in court litigation with the Bell Telephone Company over patent rights for the telephone. In 1879 Western Union dropped their litigation and the rights to the telephone fell to Bell Telephone. Ultimately, in 1881, Bell Telephone purchased Western Electric. Rotary phones were soon to be a part of most households in America.
Rotary Phones Leased to AT&T Customers
Western Union was taken under the wing of AT&T in 1915 and became a fully owned subsidiary of AT&T. As you might imagine, this relationship worked well as Western Electric designed and manufactured all of the assorted telephone equipment for AT&T. This included the manufacturing of the actual rotary telephones used by the millions of AT&T customers. AT&T retained ownership of these vintage rotary dial phones and leased them to their customers, thus establishing a line of residual income.
Western Electric released the Model 102 in 1928. This old phone was the first single handset version and replaced the older candlestick shape phones. Two years later Model 202 was designed, manufactured and released to the phone public.
Western Electric Integrates Phone Ringer into Phone Body
In 1937 designer Henry Dreyfuss designed the Model 302 rotary phone, which was the first vintage telephone to integrate the ringer into the main body of the phone.
Western Electric Model 500 Rotary Phone
In 1949 Western Electric manufactured and put into service the Model 500 desk phone. This classic rotary phone is the one most people associate with their childhood and is the phone that most of us visualize when we think of a black rotary phone. Although a Princess rotary phone and Trimline model followed years later, the popularity of the Model 500 was never surpassed.
That, my friends, is a brief rotary phone history.
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