Public telephone

Wall-mounted dial telephone with key for collecting change and sub-assembly for communication. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent for an invention that would change the world: the telephone. At first, this new technology was reserved for business people and wealthy households. The first Montreal telephone directory, in 1880, contained just 244 entries. By the end of the 19th century, the poles and wires needed for communication had invaded the landscape, and telephones began to appear in thatched cottages from the 1920s onwards. The arrival of wireless telecommunications in the last decades of the 20th century changed all that.