{"id":726,"date":"2024-04-15T18:39:10","date_gmt":"2024-04-15T22:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/?p=726"},"modified":"2024-04-15T18:39:11","modified_gmt":"2024-04-15T22:39:11","slug":"leisure-lifestyle-only-one-call-away-bell-telephone-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/uncategorized\/leisure-lifestyle-only-one-call-away-bell-telephone-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Leisure Lifestyle: Only One Call Away (Bell Telephone System)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The July 11th, 1955 edition of Life magazine printed an advertisement for the Bell Telephone System on one of its pages. This ad depicts a drawing of a large telephone with images of people performing leisure activities typically done when on vacation. While this ad would be strange to see today because of the universal technological transition to portable personal phones, in 1955 communication via telephone was more complicated than pressing on a contact’s name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The company name on the bottom of the ad, the Bell Telephone System, was named after Alexander Graham Bell the first person to patent the telephone. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) became the parent company of the Bell System which included sub-companies responsible for the manufacturing, research and development, and AT&T long lines. For context, in the 1950s telephones could make direct calls locally but required an operator to make long-distance calls. These calls also cost more money for long distances because there were infrastructure and interconnection costs to route the call over the distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that background in mind, this ad is appealing to customers by arguing that they have low rates for long distances. The other writing on the page appeals to why people should spend the money on these calls including to make vacation plans and connect with those they love. While this ad seems fairly simple, the sentiment along with the context of the period reveals a lot about post-World War II life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this blog post, I will argue that this advertisement promotes the sanitized version of the leisure lifestyle in post-World War II America. We can connect these ideas to Walter Benjamin\u2019s definition of optical unconsciousness as the advertisement reveals details about the modern world that may be uncaptured by the human eye. Likewise, this advertisement defies space and time by allowing individuals to communicate over time zones, which relates it to Benjamin\u2019s concept of the aura.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company name on the bottom of the ad, the Bell Telephone System, was named after Alexander Graham Bell the first person to patent the telephone. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) became the parent company of the Bell System which included sub-companies responsible for the manufacturing, research and development, and AT&T long lines. For context, in the 1950\u2019s telephones could make direct calls locally but required an operator to make long distance calls. These calls also costed more money for long distances because there were infrastructure and interconnection costs to route the call over the distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that background in mind, this ad is appealing to customers by arguing that they have low rates for long distances. The other writing on the page appeals to why people should spend the money on these calls including to make plans for vacation and connect with those they love. While this ad seems fairly simple, the sentiment along with the context of the time period reveals a lot about post World-War II life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this blog post I will talk about how this advertisement promotes the sanitized version of leisure lifestyle in post-World War II America. We can connect these ideas to Walter Benjamin\u2019s definition of optical unconsciousness as the advertisement reveals details about the modern world that may be uncaptured by the human eye. Likewise, this advertisement defies space and time by allowing individuals to communicate over time zones, which relates it to Benjamin\u2019s concept of the aura.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After World War II, many places, most predominantly Florida, rearranged themselves into sights for vacation that could be accessible to Americans who could not afford to go to Europe. The success of these tourist sights depended on the portrayal of their aesthetics. For Florida, this meant creating advertisements and circulating images that created a \u201cleisure landscape\u201d. Anna Andrzejewski wrote about the Florida land boom of the 1920s in her essay \u201cWork, Play, and Elephants in South Florida\u2019s Leisure Landscape\u201d (2023). She states that one of the main tourist attractions in Miami Beach was two elephants, Carl II and Rosie. In the image below you can see the elephants in an open field surrounded by nature and coexisting politely with the two white women next to them. The use of an elephant as the selling point helped shape Florida into a foreign commodity for visitors. So Americans without the money to travel to Europe could still feel like they are getting an oasis that is new and exciting for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This relates to the Bell Telephone System advertisement because of the clean, sterilized, hygienic environment that is presented in both images. Andrzejewski states that the elephants would be used to \u201chaul building materials and clear land for development\u201d while also responsible for entertaining \u201cwhite, leisure class tourists\u201d. There are many images referred to in the article depicting the type of entertainment the elephants could supply to guests, however, very few images depict the grueling work the elephants performed to prepare the resort. The advertisement in Life<\/em> creates the same effect as there are cartoon depictions of people enjoying themselves by the beach, playing golf, and riding bikes, however, there is no representation of the work staff that cleaned the beach or any of the golf caddies. Instead, it depicts vacation as an organic happiness and restful time that does not require any work. As the resorts that Carl II and Rosie worked in kept the elephants in the limelight, other required workers, most of whom were black were purposely made to be invisible to guests, unless they enhanced the consumer experience. This advertisement is a reiteration of the sentiment that a life of leisure is made for the white middle class and should exclude minorities such as Black and Jewish people, just as they are excluded from the cartoon depiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The advertisement also relates to Benjamin\u2019s optical unconsciousness. As he puts it, optical unconsciousness is the ability of photographs to reveal details about the modern world that may be overlooked or uncaptured by the human eye. While this may not be a photograph, the longer we look at this composed image, the more you begin to notice. Firstly, the drawing is in the shape of a telephone which helps put you in the context of what the advertisement is for. It may seem like just clever marketing for the phone company, however, the inside of the telephone being filled with vacation sites and activities while the rest of the page is blank also insinuates to the reader of Life magazine that the Bell Telephone System is essential to having the happy, nuclear family filled, leisure lifestyle. Like a key can unlock a door, telephones can be the way to make arrangements for a vacation in the States, therefore bringing technicolor to the life of those who can access it. Also, the hidden details of movement within the advertisement, such as hair waving in the wind, or legs being bent in anticipation of the person\u2019s next step, are not only meant to depict all the activities one can do while on vacation. Instead, the movement is symbolic of the movement toward a life with less stress for an affordable price. Each person\u2019s inflections in their arms and legs indicate a moving past the times of World War II, past concern with politics, and instead to a life that allows you to just be enthralled with the next activity you are going to complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00a0Bell\u2019s Telephone System is ultimately trying to persuade people to use their operating system for long-distance phone calls as certain economic classes have become more enthralled with domestic travel. This message intertwines with Benjamin\u2019s concept of aura in photography as he defines it as \u201ca peculiar web of space and time: the unique manifestation of a distance, however near it may be\u201d (20). In this advertisement, space is literally fogged through the connection of people in two different places. Time is even warped by the possibility of speaking to someone in a different time zone. The example of St. Louis to Grand Canyon, Arizona connects Central Daylight Time to Mountain Daylight Time which are an hour apart. The advertisement argues that this obscuration can provide \u201cpeace of mind\u201d to vacation as you can ensure plans and connect with people you love. This feeling of security aims to alleviate feelings of anxiety that come with not knowing, especially in terms of distance and time, therefore making the advertisement more appealing to consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0Ultimately, this advertisement for the Bell Telephone System effectively uses the context of its period to depict an idealized vacation only accessible to a few. We see here a culmination of ideas of sanitization, optical unconsciousness, and aura through persuasive imagery. Despite being only accessible to a few, every detail of the advertisement makes it seem as though a leisurely lifestyle is just one phone call away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.telcomhistory.org\/resources\/online-exhibits\/telephone-company-histories\/#:~:text=The%20Bell%20System’s%20history%20stretches,to%20capitalize%20on%20the%20invention.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna Vemer Andrzejewski, \u201cWork, Play, and Elephants in South Florida\u2019s Leisure Landscape\u201d < https:\/\/edgeeffects.net\/miami-beach-elephants\/<\/a>><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walter Benjamin, \u201cA Short History of Photography\u201d (1931), Screen 13.1 (1972): 5-26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The July 11th, 1955 edition of Life magazine printed an advertisement for the Bell Telephone System on one of its pages. This ad depicts a drawing of a large telephone with images of people performing leisure activities typically done when on vacation. While this ad would be strange to see today because of the universal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":780,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions\/780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}