The Bell System was the system of companies, led by the American Bell Telephone Company and subsequently by AT&T, which provided telephone services to much of the United States and Canada from 1877 to 1984, at various times as a monopoly. In 1984, the system was broken up into independent companies by a U.S. Justice Department mandate.
The colloquial term Ma Bell (as in "Mother Bell") was often used by the general public in the United States to refer to any aspect of this conglomerate, as it held a near complete monopoly over all telephone service in most areas of the country, and is still used by many to refer to any telephone company. Ma Bell is also used to refer to the various female voices behind recordings for the Bell System: Mary Moore, Jane Barbe, and Pat Fleet (the current voice of AT&T).
Read more about Bell System: History, Present-day Usage of The Bell Name, Subsidiaries, In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words bell and/or system:
“In 1862 the congregation of the church forwarded the church bell to General Beauregard to be melted into cannon, “hoping that its gentle tones, that have so often called us to the House of God, may be transmuted into war’s resounding rhyme to repel the ruthless invader from the beautiful land God, in his goodness, has given us.””
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Fear, coercion, punishment, are the masculine remedies for moral weakness, but statistics show their failure for centuries. Why not change the system and try the education of the moral and intellectual faculties, cheerful surroundings, inspiring influences? Everything in our present system tends to lower the physical vitality, the self-respect, the moral tone, and to harden instead of reforming the criminal.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)