party lines

I wouldn't mind someone explaining this more in depth either. I remember my mom mentioning that some of our family had those a while back.. it was something to where you had a "shared" line where both parties could make phone calls. I believe this was before they had individual lines for each house, apt, etc. In the beginning of the movie, she requests from the phone company her own separate line and the guy explains that other ppl have more priority over her.. that she could get pregnant to move up towards the front of the list. Also, if I'm not mistaken, you didn't have to be close distance wise to share a party line with someone. *shrugs* Hope that helps out... what little bit I have heard about them..hehe.

The problem wasn't a fear of running out of phone numbers.

There were two things going on. First was a technological issue that people don't think about much today, which is that it took a long time and a lot of money to hardwire the entire country so that anyone who wanted his or her own line could have one (or two or three). Party lines were a way to allow a number of people to have phone service with less installation/wiring time. (Now that the world is full of fiber optics cables bearing zillions of messages all at once -- another large project and expense that the communication industry engaged in -- we forget that originally a phone line needed just that --- its own physical line.) It's similar to the advent of DSL Internet service which is still not available everywhere and just a couple of years ago was only available in some neighborhoods in big cities. 30 years from now, people won't understand that everyone didn't have fast Internet access at the turn of the century.

Second, you have to remember that (again, like the Internet) not everyone believed right away that they needed a phone --- and certainly many people couldn't imagine why you would need your own, full-time line. It's not like people would have long conversations over a telephone, right? Private phone lines were also relatively more expensive than they are today. The telephone company (yes, just the one -- just like cable tv is in most places now) offered party line service as a cheaper alternative to having your own private line. This reduction in cost also served as a way to get people to subscribe to phone service with neighbors and then get so used to the servicet that they would spend the money for their own phone. (Again, just like cable offers cheap basic service but gradually gets you to spend over $1000 per year as you discover a need for HBO and SHOWTIME and 888 ESPN channels.) The prevalance of eavesdropping on the lines also encouraged people to get a private service.

It is, however, silly to think that there would be a party line shared by two well-to-do single adults in Manhattan in the 1950's (One site I saw said the last party lines in NY were in the 1930's). But, of course, it's also silly to think that Doris Day's character could afford the outfits she wore -- or that NY was ever as charming and clean and safe as it's portrayed in all these movies.

I remember having a party line in our summer house in Maine, but the people who we shared it with all lived in the same neighborhood...I LOVED eavesdropping on everyone's conversation!

When I was growing up, (late 60's/early 70's)
we had a 4 party line. I'm not sure how close
you needed to be to the other houses, but the
other members were neighbors. Sometime around
the mid 70's we switched over to a two party
line. My friends and I would occasionally find
it interesting to listen to the neighbors, but
as I recall, they were pretty boring. We each
had a different ring, and phone number, so we
didn't answer the other's calls. If you needed
to make a call, and the other party was on the
line, we'd pick up, check, hang up, then check
back in a few minutes. If it was an emergency,
you'd let them know, and they'd get off the line.
According to Verizon, http://www.vzmultimedia.com/customersupport/areacodes/areacode_basics.html
area codes were put in place starting in 1947,
so clearly, party lines were around long after that.
We finally got a single party line around 1982,
when the Bell phone system was broken up. This
was just as well, because I started to spend a
lot of time on the phone as a teenager, and how
tragic it would have been to have to hang up on
my friend two doors down, in the middle of an
important call. _grin_

I grew up in farm country and one side of our street had a party line. The street was about 10 miles ling and 7 houses used it. The other side of the street had a separate party line. Everybody on the line had the same phone number so when the phone would ring you’d answer it. If it wasn’t your call you’d stay on the line for a few moments to see if the right person picked up. If not the caller would call back and you would just let it ring. Sometimes a person would have to call 3 or 4 times before the right party answered.

I have an Uncle and Aunt who met and married because they met on a party line. My uncle was actaully at his friends house when he wanted to call home, and on the party line was my aunt. She was talking to one of her girl friends and they both thought the other's voice was nice. They ended up meeting, dating and now have been married for over 20 years. LOL how funny it does really happen in real life.

There were many different arrangements of party lines used in the past. They all shared the common feature of having each party connected to the same pair of wires back to the central office, but they differed in how many people shared the line, how incoming calls rang the phones, and so on. Some arrangements were favored in certain areas over others, and independent telephone companies often used different arrangements from the Bell System.

The attributes shared by all party line systems were that anybody picking up a phone on the party line would hear any conversation already in progress, and that when any party on the line was using the phone then all numbers associated with that party line would be busy. That's why if you tried to dial a number on the same party line as yourself, you would always get a busy signal, and hence the need for a special code to call someone on your own party line (because you had to hang up for the other party to be rung).

The simplest arrangement was a 2-way party line, as suggested in this movie. These generally had fully selective ringing, meaning that your phone would ring only for your own calls, not for the other party as well. Any two numbers within the same central office could be coupled together to form a party line, e.g. a PLaza 2-xxxx number could be combined with any other PLaza 2-xxxx number.

It was also possible to have a 4-way party line with fully selective ringing, again with your phone ringing only for your own calls. However 4-way lines could also be partially selective, in which case coded ringing was employed. Your phone would ring for your own calls and for those of one of the other parties; one person had a single ring, the other a double ring to differentiate. The other two people on the same line had their own single and double rings, but you would never hear them.

This coded ringing could be extended with different ringing patterns to allow for larger party lines.

A 10-way arrangement was quite common in rural areas at one time, with everybody on the same party line having the same telephone number except for the last digit. All the preceeding digits determined which physical line the call was destined for, and the last digit simply selected the type of ringing. There were a number of different ringing schemes employed, but a typical arrangement might have been 1=single long ring, 2=two short rings, 3=long-short, 4=long-short-short, 5=four short rings. The last digits 6, 7, 8, 9, and 0 then repeated this sequence of ringing patterns, but on the other side of the split ringing.

Let's assume your phone number was 2482. You would hear your phone ring not only for your own calls, but also for 2481, 2483, 2484, and 2485. You just had to remember that your ring was short-short. You would not hear the ringing for 2486, 2487, 2488, 2489, and 2480, but anyone who had one of those five numbers would hear the ringing for the other four (but would not hear the ringing for 2481 thru 2485).

This splitting of the line into two groups was only for ringing. It was still the case that anybody picking up on that party line when it was in use would overhear the conversation of any of the other nine, and when any one party was using the phone then all ten numbers would become busy.

There were also party lines on manual (non dial) exchanges which had different numbering arrangements. One common scheme had 4-way party lines with a letter J, M, R, or W suffixed to the line number. So if your number was 389-M, the other three parties sharing your line would be 389-J, 389-R, and 389-W. The operator just had a single jack on her board for line 389, then she operated the appropriate ringing key for the required party.

I hope that explains things a little better. Note that this description applies to the U.S.A. and Canada -- Other countries could have different arrangements.

Jan and Brad shared a party line, but they did not live in the same building, and never saw each other. Wouldn't it be more efficient to have the members closer together? And was this all before the advent of area codes? Because it's hard to believe that they would be running out of phone numbers to give.