Carterphone
date: label: date made
content: ca. 1967
label: date made
content: ca 1967
name: label: patent holder
content: Carter, Thomas F.
label: maker
content: Carter Electronics Corporation
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: Thomas Carter and his Carterfone played a significant role in ending the Bell Telephone Company’s monopoly on telephone service in the United States. Carter’s device connected telephone and radio conversations without a wired electrical connection. At the time, the Bell Company owned most of the telephones in America and prohibited customers from using the device claiming that it might harm their network. Carter successfully sued the Bell System arguing that with no wired connection Carterfones could not damage the network. This and other legal cases undermined Bell’s arguments that only a monopoly could provide economical telephone service and the company was broken up in 1982.
place: label: place made
content: United States: Texas, Dallas
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Electricity
label: See more items in
content: Communications
label: Exhibition
content: Inventing In America
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: from Thomas F. Carter
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1989.0504.01
label: accession number
content: 1989.0504
label: catalog number
content: 1989.0504.01
label: serial number
content: 42544
objectType: label: Object Name
content: telephone interconnection
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 11 cm x 12 cm x 28 cm; 4 5/16 in x 4 3/4 in x 11 in