Really.
One feature of Myspace and Facebook is that they both have internal email systems. However, you must be a member of one or the other in order to reach others in the same network. You can't internally message a Myspace user from Facebook.
Analogously, Ypsilanti in 1907 had two competing and mutually hostile telephone companies. Ypsilantians subscribed to either the Washtenaw Home Telephone Company (265 homes in Ypsi around this time) or the Michigan State Telephone Company (1,478 homes in Ypsi). The systems did not overlap. If you were a member of WHTC and your friend across town was a member of MSTC, you could NOT call them, just as you can't communicate internally between Myspace and Facebook.
Hardly what you'd expect from communications companies!
Background: Kind readers may recall a discussion the other day about a 1907 Washtenaw Light and Power ad. Alert reader jml asked, "Any idea what the line at the bottom, "Both Phones 1" means? Were there two competing phone services, and Washtenaw Power & Light got the coveted '1' number for both?"
Dusty D offered a speculation that turned out to have been wrong. However, after snuffling around, it emerges that jml was correct: at the time of this advertisement, Ypsilanti had dual, and dueling, telephone company systems.
The boildown: When Bell's 'phone patent petered out in 1893, numerous independent telephone companies leapt into being and vigorously competed. Michigan had many, and Ypsilanti two.Ypsilanti businesses subscribed to BOTH the WHTC (which is "the company" referred to in the excerpt at above left) and the MSTC in order to reach and be reached by both pools of subscribers, much as modern businesses maintain profiles on multiple social networking sites.
The WHTC was eventually bought by the MSTC, the latter of which eventually became Ameritech and then SBC.
SBC is the telephone company whose earlier iterations, a century ago, wiped out Ypsilanti's problem of competing social networks. Today SBC also provides Internet service, with which newbie users may create a Facebook page---only to encounter the frustration of not being able to communicate between social networking systems. The recursive irony!
But, phooey, that's nothing new! High-tech Ypsilantians a century ago had the same dilemma!
Thanks to jml for the great question!
The first phone in Ypsilanti is credited to Clark Cornwell, - James Mann did a story last year
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/08/ypsilanti_one_of_the_first_cit.html
quoting from The Ypsilanti Commercial of July 30, 1881:
"To call the Central Office, ring the Bell twice, then take down the Hand Telephone and press it firmly against the ear, and wait at least one minute before repeating the signal; when answered, tell the Central Office what is wanted, and hold the Hand Telephone to the ear until answered by the party asked for."
There's also an Ann Arbor Observer article by Grace Shackman at the AADL's archives
http://www.aadl.org/aaobserver/18627
Keech and Clark Cornwell of Ypsilanti owned a phone line between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, and in 1881 they approached Saline to hook up to their service. Keech’s companies would grow into the Michigan State Telephone Company, later Michigan Bell. In its early days, the company was challenged by a number of small local companies and an Ann Arbor–based regional company called Washtenaw Home Phone. By 1913 Bell had bought everyone out and had become the sole provider, except in Saline, which was served by the Saline Telephone Company, a private company formed by Edward Hauser.
Edward: Hey, thank you for stopping by!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the tidbits!
(Another 1800s early adopter tidbit: just as "Tom Sawyer was the first novel written on a typewriter, Mark Twain was one of the first folks to get one of those newfangled "telephones.")
It is interesting that Cornwell's "network"--which was also the first telephone in Washtenaw County, not just Ypsi--was a private one of just 3 phones, connecting his home & 2 businesses. But apparently he later also became the first telephone company owner in the county, as Harvey Colburn says in "The Story of Ypsilanti":
"The first [telephone] office was in that of the Ypsilanti Paper Company on the east side of Norris Street [near the present-day Corner Brewery]. E. C. Cornwell was the first manager and the subscribers numbered sixty, their wants being served the first year by Nellie Parker and Harry Neat."
(The Ypsilanti Paper Co. was also the unwitting founder of Ypsi's "medicinal"-waters period when it drilled a well on the paper mill property).
Anyways, Clark's father Cornelius built the house at 203 N. Huron which still stands. Here's a Google Street View peek:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=%22203+N.+Huron%22+ypsilanti&ie=UTF8&ll=42.243928,-83.613124&spn=0.012231,0.037079&z=15&iwloc=A&layer=c&cbll=42.243821,-83.613115&panoid=qXVS19bAnwxZPb9KUgKpYg&cbp=12,303.69,,0,-10.42
And here is more info about the home from the YHF:
http://www.yhf.org/sites/201_N_Huron_Cornwell-Beyer_House%20.html
Wow, I asked, you answered! Thank you for doing the research. It's interesting to see this pattern happen over and over again:
ReplyDelete* small little companies spring up to take advantage of a new technology;
* the better or bolder companies buy up or force out smaller companies;
* eventually the field is dominated by a few players.
It happened in railroads, radio, autos, many computer component and, now I know, telephones. As you point out, it's happening now in online social networks. What's next?
Hi jml,
ReplyDeleteYou are most welcome--it was a great question, and I was fascinated to learn that Ypsilanti had two mutually exclusive telephone systems.
Interesting point about the pattern of evolution of new technologies...what next indeed? Perhaps some green technologies? At least until the future day when we can stop by Turbines 'R Us.
Electric or alternative-fuel vehicles seem to be at about this stage. Cars can be built to burn all sorts of things. But they are only practical if they burn something sold at every gas station. And the effective range of an electric car would be a lot greater if every parking spot had a power outlet.
ReplyDelete