U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for February 21

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

FIRST TELEPHONE DIRECTORY

Profile America — Saturday, February 21st. In the early days of the telephone, knowing who had one and what the number was quickly became a problem. The first telephone directory in the U.S. was published on this date in 1878 in New Haven, Connecticut. It wasn't a big list — there were only 50 subscribers. A little later, a directory also came out in San Francisco, with about 170 names. Today, of America's roughly 116 million housing units occupied by owners or renters, almost 114 million, or about 98 percent, have cellular or landline telephone service. Eleven firms issue directories for the nation's hundreds of millions of listed personal and business phone numbers. Manufacturing telephones and associated equipment is a $7 billion a year domestic business. You can find more facts about America's people, places and economy, from the American Community Survey, at www.census.gov.

Sources: Kane's Famous First Facts, 1818

San Francisco directory: http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/hgtel.htm

http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ECN_2007_US_44SLLS1&prodType=table

Household phone service: http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_13_1YR_DP04&prodType=table

Telephone directory publishing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Telephone_directory_publishing_companies_of_the_United_States

Phone numbers/p. 12, t. 1:
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-319997A1.pdf 

Manufacturing/NAICS 334210:
http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ECN_2012_US_31I2&prodType=table 

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button). 

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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau

Related Links

http://www.census.gov