Description
The New York-Chicago cable was installed between 1921 and 1926 by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company to increase the capacity for long distance telephone service. An issue of the Bell Telephone Quarterly published midway through the project explained that the development of telephone repeaters had made it possible to use conductors of a smaller gauge. This allowed for more circuits with fewer cables. As different sections of toll cable were placed in service some open wire was dismantled immediately, and additional wire would be dismantled later on, in order to lighten the load on telephone poles. Presumably the cable section incorporated into this paperweight is of the then state-of-the-art telephone cable used in the replacement process, as allowed by the greater number of circuits.
Inscription on metal plate:
New York-Chicago Cable
Chicago-South Bend Section
B Cable
27 Quads 16 Gauge
6 Pair 16 Gauge
99 Quads 19 Gauge
1 Quad 22 Gauge
1929
Reference:
“Engineering the Long Lines.” Bell Telephone Quarterly. Vol. 2, No. 1. New York: January 1923. pp. 23-24. Online at Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=HVAiAQAAIAAJ (28 February 2011).
