What are you reading the week of November 24, 2013?

[SheilaT]

6. Still reading "Quiet Dell"

but I was jolted out of the novel when a female reporter apparently direct dials from Clarksburg, West Virginia, to Chicago, Illinois in 1931.

Ummm, I'm almost completely certain it wasn't possible then. Definitely not long distance, because the first area codes, which allowed direct long distance dialing, didn't happen (according to Wikipedia) until 1951, and then only in a very, very limited area.

I was talking to a friend of mine this afternoon about this, and he told me that in Greensburg, PA, where he grew up, you still had to go through an operator for all calls until about 1959 or 60.