TELEPHONE INSTALLED IN THE WHITE HOUSE TELEGRAPH ROOM
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On May 10, 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes had a telephone installed in the Telegraph Room at the White House.
The only connection the White House telephone had at the time was with the Treasury Department. The new White House telephone number was the single digit #1.
Two years after telephone service was set up in the Nation's Capital there were only 190 subscribers. President Hayes rarely used the telephone most likely because there were so few others who had one.
According to the Washington Post, President Barack Obama was critical of President Hayes' indifference to the communications device. Mr. Obama's criticism was based on a historically unconfirmed comment in which Mr. Hayes said that the telephone was "a great invention, but who would ever want to use one."
President Hayes did not actually use the telephone until late June 1877 when he spoke with the inventor Alexander Graham Bell. Upon hearing Mr. Bell's voice over the line, Mr. Hayes said, "That is wonderful."
SOURCES
"Hayes has first phone installed in White House," May 10, www.history.com/
"Obama's whopper about Rutherford B. Hayes and the telephone," by Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post, March 16, 2012, www.washingtonpost.com/
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Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On May 10, 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes had a telephone installed in the Telegraph Room at the White House.
The only connection the White House telephone had at the time was with the Treasury Department. The new White House telephone number was the single digit #1.
Two years after telephone service was set up in the Nation's Capital there were only 190 subscribers. President Hayes rarely used the telephone most likely because there were so few others who had one.
According to the Washington Post, President Barack Obama was critical of President Hayes' indifference to the communications device. Mr. Obama's criticism was based on a historically unconfirmed comment in which Mr. Hayes said that the telephone was "a great invention, but who would ever want to use one."
President Hayes did not actually use the telephone until late June 1877 when he spoke with the inventor Alexander Graham Bell. Upon hearing Mr. Bell's voice over the line, Mr. Hayes said, "That is wonderful."
SOURCES
"Hayes has first phone installed in White House," May 10, www.history.com/
"Obama's whopper about Rutherford B. Hayes and the telephone," by Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post, March 16, 2012, www.washingtonpost.com/
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1877 Telephone
