History
According to legend, Almon Strowger, an undertaker, was motivated to invent an automatic telephone exchange after having difficulties with the local telephone operators, one of whom was the wife of a competitor. He was said to be convinced that she, as one of the manual telephone exchange operators was sending calls "to the undertaker" to her husband.
He first conceived his invention in 1888, and patented the automatic telephone exchange in 1891. It is reported that the initial model was made from a round collar box and some straight pins.
Read more about this topic: Strowger Switch
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