280 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



THE SOCIAL VALUE OF THE TELEPHONE x 



O. WALTER FISKE 



AMONG these modern blessings in the country home, one of the 

 most significant is the telephone. A business necessity in the 

 city, it is a great social asset in the rural home, like an additional 

 member of the family circle. It used to be said, though often 

 questioned, that farmers' wives on western farms furnished the 

 largest quota of insane asylum inmates, because of the monotony 

 and loneliness of their life. The tendency was especially notice- 

 able in the case of Scandinavian immigrant women, accustomed 

 in the old home to the farm hamlet with its community life. 



To-day the farmer's wife suffers no such isolation. To be sure 

 the wizards of invention have not yet given us the teleblephone, 

 by which the faces of distant friends can be made visible ; but the 

 telephone brings to us that wonderfully personal element, the 

 human voice, the best possible substitute for the personal pres- 

 ence. Socially, the telephone is a priceless boon to the country 

 home, especially for the women, who have been most affected by 

 isolation in the past. They can now lighten the lonely hours by 

 a chat with neighbors over household matters, or even have a 

 neighborhood council, with five on the line, to settle some ques- 

 tion of village scandal! All sorts of community doings are 

 speedily passed from ear to ear. Details of social plans for 

 church or grange are conveniently arranged by wire. Symp- 

 toms are described by an anxious mother to a resourceful grand- 

 mother and a .remedy prescribed which will cure the baby before 

 the horse could even be harnessed. Or at any hour of the day or 

 night the doctor in the village can be quickly summoned and a 

 critical hour saved, which means the saving of a precious life. 



On some country lines a general ring at six o'clock calls all 

 who care to hear the daily market quotations ; and at noon the 

 weather report for the day is issued. If the weather is not 

 right, the gang of men coming from the village can be inter- 

 cepted by 'phone. Or if the quotations are not satisfactory, a 



distant city can be called on the wire and the day's shipment 







i Adapted from "The Challenge of the Country," pp. 66-68. Association 

 Press, New York, 1912. 



