Western Electric Company Princess phones

The Princess telephone was introduced by the

Bell System The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over one hundr ...

in 1959. It was a compact telephone designed for convenient use in the bedroom, and contained a light-up dial for use as a night-light. It was commonly advertised with the slogan "It's little...It's lovely...It lights", which was suggested by Robert Karl Lethin, an AT&T employee. The Princess was initially designed by the famed industrial designer

Henry Dreyfuss Henry Dreyfuss (March 2, 1904 – October 5, 1972) was an American industrial design pioneer. Dreyfuss is known for designing some of the most iconic devices found in American homes and offices throughout the twentieth century, including the We ...

, having designed previous

Western Electric The Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company officially founded in 1869. A wholly owned subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph for most of its lifespan, it served as the primary equipment ma ...

models with the

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mul ...

engineers. Later redesigns involved Donald Genaro of the Dreyfuss design firm. Genaro redesigned the case so that it could be more easily picked up. Contemporary advertising demonstrates that this telephone was marketed to women, hence its feminine model name. The model was available in a broad range of colors, including pink, red, yellow, moss green, black, white, beige, ivory, light blue, turquoise, and gray. The telephone was produced at the Western Electric Indianapolis, and later

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Works plants, also the production location of 500 and 2500 series telephones. The

Trimline telephone The Trimline telephone is a series of telephones that was produced by Western Electric, the manufacturing unit of the Bell System. These telephones were first introduced in 1965 and are formally referred to as the ''No. 220 Hand Telephone ...

is often confused with the Princess because the Trimline dial lights up, even though the dial on the Trimline is in the handset. The Princess required an external electric transformer to power the lighted dial. The dial was mounted in the center on the base of the telephone. When Western Electric commenced production they did not yet have a ringer small enough to fit inside the case. The phone was introduced without containing a ringer, but an external ringer box could be added. Early versions of the Princess, those not containing a ringer, had the model number 701B. Customers complained that the phone was so light that it would slide on surfaces while dialing, so an optional lead weight was added to fill the space intended for the ringer. Later models included the M1A ringer. The rotary dial version with ringer was known as the 702B, while the modular cord variant was labeled 702BM. The model 711B had a slide switch or

push-button A push-button (also spelled pushbutton) or simply button is a simple switch mechanism to control some aspect of a machine or a process. Buttons are typically made out of hard material, usually plastic or metal. The surface is usually flat or ...

and was a two-line phone with exclusion on the first line. The ten-button Touch Tone version was known as the 1702B, and when twelve-button keypad were introduced the phone was labeled as 2702B. The modular cord version of this was the 2702BM. Several other variants existed. The Princess underwent several changes in its production run: * In 1963, the

introduced

touchtone ''TouchTone'' is a 2015 puzzle video game for iOS devices by Mikengreg, a two-person indie game development team made up of Mike Boxleiter and Greg Wohlwend. The player monitors phone calls as part of a government surveillance program to find ...

dialing, and Western Electric began production of a touch-tone model, with 10 numerical keys, lacking today's * and # keys. The internals of the Princess were reduced in size the same year, allowing a small, quiet bell ringer to be placed to the left of the touch-tone dial. * In the mid 1970s, AT&T introduced

modular connector A modular connector is a type of electrical connector for cords and cables of electronic devices and appliances, such as in computer networking, telecommunication equipment, and audio headsets. Modular connectors were originally developed fo ...

s for the line cord and handset cords, requiring the RJ11 standard home telephone jack. Most customers who had Princess telephones were converted to modular jacks. * In 1983, AT&T was preparing itself for divestiture of the

. It started

American Bell, Inc. AT&T Information Systems (ATTIS), originally known as American Bell, was the fully separate subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) which focused on computer technology ventures and telephone sales, and other unregulated busine ...

, a separate sales subsidiary of Western Electric and the

Bell Operating Companies The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over one hundre ...

. AT&T introduced a non-light up dial with white keys to be sold in Phone Center Stores. These sets were marked ''CS'' on the bottom, for ''consumer sales''. Post-divestiture colors added after 1984 included peach, dark gray, slate blue and cameo (light) green. * In 1993, the Princess was extensively redesigned. Although it retained the same handset & oval footprint which it had since its introduction, it now used a new dial. This dial still required an external transformer for night-light use. A handset volume control was added to the dial pad. The phone number card was moved from below the dialpad to the location of the cradle for the transmitter. This model was called the ''Signature Princess'', and was freely available for lease; only available for purchase at AT&T Phone Centers, which closed in 1996. In 1994, AT&T ended production of the Princess telephone. It continues to lease the Signature Princess model. Due to its removal from production, and its attractive design, the Princess has become a collectible phone. Princess telephones in pink, turquoise, and black are among the rarest colors of the phones and most valuable.

Automatic Electric Automatic Electric Company (A.E. Co.) was an American telephone equipment supplier primarily for independent telephone companies in North America, but also had a worldwide presence. With its line of automatic telephone exchanges, it was also a lon ...

offered a lighted-rotary-dial model of similar proportions but with a rectangular, rather than elliptical, footprint, called the ''Starlite Phone'', and later offered a non-lighted 12-key touch-tone model simply called the ''Desk Compact''.

References

External links

Western Electric Princess Telephone Models
- A comprehensive page on princess telephones
Western Electric Telephone Models
{{Western Electric telephones Western Electric telephones Products introduced in 1959

See also

References

External links