Use Restrictions

Public Domain. There are no known restrictions.

Access Restrictions

There are no access restrictions.

Alternate Format Available

The entire collection is available online through the Midwest commercial architecture photograph collection. You can also access the digital objects through the inventory on this finding aid.

Preferred Citation

Midwest commercial architecture photograph collection, C0188, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Acquisition Information

Collection purchased from Fine Antiquarian Books in 2010.

Processing Information

Processed by and EAD markup completed by Greta Kuriger in January 2011. Updated by Greta Kuriger Suiter in March 2013. Finding aid updated by Amanda Menjivar in January 2023.

Historical Information

The Central Union Telephone Company was originally based in Chicago and in 1883 took over the Midland Telephone Company, a Bell organization also based in Chicago. Many Bell patents expired in 1893 and 1894 resulting in an increase of competing telephone companies. By the early 1900s the Central Union Telephone Company was headquartered in Indiana and was organized to develop telephone service in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. Mergers in the telephone industry in the early 1900s resulted in Central Union Telephone becoming part of Indiana Bell, Illinois Bell, and Ohio Bell. In 1920 Central Union Telephone Company was purchased by the Ohio Bell Telephone Company which emerged from the Cleveland Telephone Company. In the 1920s telephone service in Ohio was unified under Ohio Bell.

Scope and Content

Thirty-two photographs, each approximately 4 x 5 inches, depicting commercial buildings in rural northwestern Ohio with recently installed telephones. The Central Union Telephone Company brought local and long distance calling to commercial buildings and advertised the new service with signage. Signs for Central Union can be seen in twenty-seven of the photographs. These photographs could have been used as a way to document their placement. There are a variety of commercial buildings present in the photographs, as well as telephone poles, merchants' signs, displays of goods, customers, horse drawn wagons, and bicycles. Three of the photograph the set up of a telephone operator, as well as three men posing humorously for the camera.

Arrangement

Arranged by subject.

Related Material

The Special Collections Research Center holds many other photograph collections.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Advertising -- Telephone companies
• Dwellings
• Dwellings -- Ohio
• Ohio
• Photographic prints
• Storefronts