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September 2008 Item of the Month

The First Telephone Directory

This is one of two known surviving copies of the first telephone directory of the first public telephone company in the world, established on January 28, 1878, in New Haven, Connecticut, as the New Haven District Telephone Company. The company was founded by George Coy, Herrick Frost and Walter Lewis (whose names, you will note, are included on the sheet) just two years after Alexander Graham Bell took out a patent on his invention of the telephone. By the time this directory was printed, less than one month after the company opened for business, they had fifty subscribers.

By 1882 the company had changed its name to the Southern New England Telephone Company, which continued to provide telephone service in Connecticut until it was purchased in 1998 by SBC Communications, Inc. This company is now known as AT&T.

This directory is from the Southern New England Telephone Company Records, donated in 2002 to Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. This collection is one of many in the archive that shows the rich and varied history of business and industry in Connecticut. More information about the Connecticut business history collections can be found here.