Life, 1924-03-20 · page 31 of 42
Life — March 20, 1924 — page 31: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily **advertising copy**, not satire or political commentary. Western Electric promotes how coal serves as a critical component in telephone transmitters—specifically carbon granules in the transmitter button that convert voice vibrations into electrical signals. The page explains the manufacturing process: treated coal grains are precisely measured and assembled into carbon buttons, then tested by phonographs repeatedly speaking "1, 2, 3, 4, 5" to ensure quality. The photographs show skilled workers weighing coal particles with precision instruments and inspecting finished components. The implied message: modern telephone technology relies on careful industrial craftsmanship—a quality Western Electric has maintained "since 1869." This is part of a series promoting "raw materials" in electrical equipment. There is no satire intended; it's straightforward product promotion positioning coal as essential infrastructure for American communication technology.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
is the carbon but in which treated oalare placed. of your voice cause these grains sometimes to bune sometimes to touch ach other lightly Phe telephone trans! Your voice sets up ‘oal partic ts over the wires. —in your telephone Coal, selected with painstaking care and subjected to a series of special treatments, becomes in the transmitter the very vocal chords of the telephone. This treated ‘coal offers a means of translat- ing into electrical impulses the vibrations of the voice and even the inflections and man- nerisms peculiar to any one voice. Skill of a high order is essential in making the carbon button and indeed all of the 201 individual desk telephone parts. This craftsmanship has been a Western Electric standard ever since 1877. *No. 7 of a series on raw materials, r To make sure that the car- bon button is filled right and that the whole transmitter has been propertly assembled, phonographs like this repeat the phrase, ‘I, 2, 3,4, 5,"° many thousand times’ into the mouthpiece. SINCE 1869 MAKERS OF ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT Weighing the grains of coal th into the carbon button operative. using a ¢ contains, comicbooks.com