Take a peek of my upcoming novel

[N.S. Ugezene]

You can now view the first three chapters of my upcoming novel. I hope that it is agreeable to the tastes of fellow Lulu members.

N.S. Ugezene

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/the-beginnings-of-urbaya/7868539

[Silvano Velez]

I read your preview. If I understood the setting right, the year is 1933. I am not sure there was a lot of macking and asking for telephone numbers during that time period sir.

[N.S. Ugezene]

What I have done is staged the novel throughout the state of Illinois. I created a city that doesn't even exist. I will not be staying in one time period, as I have elected to move the story along through time.

[Silvano Velez]

[N.S. Ugezene]

I understand where you are coming from Silvano, but how else would people be able to call each other if they didn't ask for a number or were given it? I strongly doubt that many women were just divulging information without being asked in the 1930s. Consider the fact that today, and even ten years ago, women were supplying men with wrong numbers. And let's use history here. Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray, in the 1870s, invented devices that prequeled what the telephone has become. That fact allows for at least 60 years of advancement in the telephone between the 1870s and the 1930s.

[Silvano Velez]

Google it. There weren't telephone numbers in the 30's, there were a combination of letters and numbers. People didn't have the luxury of using phones as entertainment. Phones didn't have the now popular numbers convention until the 60's.

Just FYI.

[N.S. Ugezene]

What would they call it then? That makes it difficult to explain how people were phoned. That wasn't even morse code and morse code was only accesible to the government. So the only thing I would be able to do is to say that he wanted to contact her. That is possible to do but what I think I will do is to shift the time to when phone companies first came into play.

You've really got to do some homework, especially if you are going to use an historical setting. What in the world do you mean when you say there "wasn't even morse code and morse code was only accesible to the government" [sic throughout]? The Morse code had been around since the 1840s and was in constant use by commercial enterprises (Western Union, to take just one example). Even Boy Scouts learned it.

People used phrases such as "Phone me sometime" or "I'll phone you later" in the 30s, though it was early enough that you will often see an apostrophe used before the p.

R

[N.S. Ugezene]

Ok. It is my understanding that telephone numbers in those times were alphanumeric as you have stated. So to keep the time in place, I have to refer to that character asking for an alphanumeric code. Many calls were placed through an operator at Central who would transfer the calls upon the request of the caller, even after numbers were assigned.

[Frances Pawley]

If you have ever seen the film 'Once Upon a Time in America' that will take you to the time span you are talking about; in fact it is a little earlier. It clearly shows that people who have money are the only ones with phones, and yes, as these were so far flung they did need a telephone operator to put calls through. Even in the UK - Scotland Yard was
Whitehall 1212 until the late 1950's.

[Ron Miller]