fun, strange holidays grouped by month

Pushbutton Phone Day

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On November 18, 1963, the first pushbutton telephone went on sale to the public. It may seem quaint now in the age of mobile phones, when many of us don’t even have landlines anymore. But this was cutting-edge technology in its day and remains an integral part of telecommunications history.

Industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss, working under contract to Bell Systems, devised the form of the Touch Tone™ Model 1500 telephone with the help of wooden models like this one.

pushbutton phone day

Tone dialing had been in use within Bell Systems’ switching network for several years. With the introduction of the Model 1500, tone dialing was made available to the general public. It featured the same footprint and handset as its predecessor but replaced the rotary dial with a 10-button keypad. (It had no # and * buttons; those keys were added in 1968 with the Model 2500.)

Bell set the stage for the rotary dial phone’s replacement when it showcased the new pushbutton phone’s speed and convenience at the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle, Washington.

The Model 1500 was a natural evolution of the rotary dial telephone, which had represented a transformational piece of technology when it supplanted the old switchboard method of placing calls 44 years earlier. Prior to 1919, operators at centrally-located switchboards manually connected calls by inserting a pair of phone plugs into the appropriate jacks.

pushbutton phone day

A phone subscriber lifted the receiver off the hook and asked the operator to place a call. If the requested number was located on the operator’s switchboard, she would connect the call by plugging the ringing cord into the jack corresponding to the called customer’s line. If that line was on a different switchboard or in a different central office, the operator plugged into the trunk for the destination switchboard or office and asked the operator who answered (known as the “B” operator) to connect the call.

Operators were in the perfect position to listen in on conversations. Their assistance was required for anything other than calling telephones across a common party line. Back then, “party line” did not refer to one of the infamous 900 numbers that pegged credit card limits in the 1980s. (Here’s a fun compilation of ads for those.) Party lines were shared by residents, especially in rural areas, where demand outstripped supply, and were notorious for neighbors monitoring each others’ conversations for gossip fodder.

pushbutton phone day

First dial phone–1919

Rotary dial service eliminated the need for human switchboard operators. An “off-hook condition” was immediately detected when a caller lifted the handset. The sound of the dial tone signaled that the automatic exchange was ready to receive dialed digits. Pulse tones defined by the length of each rotation of the dial were processed, and a connection was established to the destination telephone.

Pushbutton Phone Day

The touch-tone system introduced in 1963 greatly improved upon the speed of the rotary dial’s pulse method of routing calls. It also entertained teenagers who enjoyed keying songs into their parents’ phones using its musical notes. This sometimes resulted in huge phone bills when one of those tunes happened to begin with a 1 or a number within a local area code that incurred long-distance charges.

The Pushbutton Telephone Songbook was published in 1971 to address the problem of how to safely play songs without incurring long-distance charges. The book sold more than 500,000 copies.PushButton Phone Day

Today’s cellular phones don’t need a dial tone because they parse and send whole phone numbers at once. Some include a simulated dial tone as a familiar aural cue to the owner that a “line” is available. Jitterbug phones, marketed directly to seniors, incorporate this comforting feature.

For the most part, these technologies are rapidly fading from memory. The phone is more ubiquitous than ever, having made the leap from our homes into our pockets. Many young people have never touched a rotary phone or heard a dial tone. So today, we salute the innovations that brought us to this moment in time.

Happy Pushbutton Phone Day!

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George Spelvin Day

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George Spelvin DayToday is George Spelvin Day. Who is he, and why does he have his own day? He was “born” on November 15, 1886, and is still going strong. How is that possible?

George Spelvin began as a pseudonym used in theatrical playbills to hide the fact that a performer was “doubling“—playing two roles in a play or musical. Actors changed costumes and makeup, sometimes adding a second, disguised photo to the program, all to (hopefully) fool theatergoers. Listing a player’s name twice would ruin the effect.

Sometimes, a playwright or director added a fictitious actor and role to the cast list to trick audience members into thinking the character would appear. This misdirection could make a plot twist or other device harder to figure out, thus making it more effective and entertaining.

George Spelvin first appeared on a Broadway Playbill on November 15, 1886, opening night of Karl the Peddler, a play by Charles A. Gardiner. In 1906, Winchell Smith “cast” him in Brewster’s Millions. After the show’s success, Smith considered Spelvin a good luck charm and added him to many other shows.

Spelvin appeared in the credits of films such as D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915) and the Academy Award-winning From Here to Eternity (1953). He appeared on television and in soap operas, including The Guiding Light and Edge of Night. He called himself George Spelvinsky, Georges Spelvinet, Giorgio Spelvino, or Gregor Spelvanovich for European roles.

Over time, the Spelvin family expanded. George Spelvin, Jr. shared billing with his “father” in the 1929 play Kibitzer. Georgette Spelvin debuted in the short-lived Broadway production of Love Girl (1922). The clan had a “black sheep” as well: Georgina Spelvin, used by porn actress Chele Welsh as her screen name in adult films such as The Devil in Miss Jones (1973) and mainstream fare like Police Academy (1984).

Although doubling has lost its stigma, pseudonyms remain popular. Actors’ Equity Association members wishing to work under a non-union contract may use alternate names to avoid fines and possible revocation of union membership. Performers who become unhappy while shooting a movie may try to substitute a false name in the credits to disassociate themselves from a potential box office bomb.

The Spelvin name has grown so well-known that it has become an in-joke for sophisticated audiences. (Alan Smithee, used by disgruntled directors, enjoys a similar status among moviegoers.) Spelvin’s British counterparts are Mr. F. Anney, Mr. Bart, and Walter Plinge, who has his own holiday on December 2nd.

Have a happy George Spelvin Day!

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National American Teddy Bear Day

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National American Teddy Bear Day celebrates the cuddly stuffed animal with a remarkable history that includes a US president and a preacher spouting conspiracy theories.

Today’s date coincides with a hunting trip taken in November 1902. The governor of Mississippi invited Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, to a bear hunt, but after three days, Roosevelt hadn’t spotted one. To keep the president’s trip from ending in failure, the guides set the dogs loose; they tracked down an old black bear and attacked it.

They brought the wounded bear back to camp and tied it to a tree for the president. When Roosevelt saw the old bear, he refused to shoot it because to do so would be unsportsmanlike. However, since it was injured, Roosevelt directed the men to put the bear down to end its suffering.

Word traveled quickly across the country. The Washington Post ran this headline on November 15, 1902:

PRESIDENT CALLED AFTER THE BEAST HAD BEEN LASSOED,
BUT HE REFUSED TO MAKE AN UNSPORTSMANLIKE SHOT

Political cartoonist Clifford Berryman drew a single panel that appeared in the Post the next day. In it, the president stands in the foreground, a guide and bear behind him. Berryman depicted the bear as a cub trembling in fear. He began to include the cub in other drawings of Roosevelt, forever linking him to bears.

national american teddy bear day

Morris Michtom, a Brooklyn candy shop owner,  saw Berryman’s cartoons and was inspired to make a stuffed bear. Michtom wrote to Roosevelt and asked his permission to call the toy “Teddy’s Bear.” Although the president agreed to lend his name to the new invention, he is said to have doubted it would ever amount to much in the toy business.

The runaway popularity of the cuddly bears led Michtom to mass-produce them, forming the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company in 1903. It soon became a multimillion-dollar business.  By 1907, the toy had become so popular that a preacher in Michigan warned that replacing dolls with toy bears would destroy little girls’ maternal instincts. Reverend Michael G. Esper raised the alarm:

Race suicide, the gravest danger which confronts this nation today, is being fostered and encouraged by the fad for supplanting the good old dolls of our childhood with the horrible monstrosity known as the ‘Teddy Bear.’

Newspapers in 27 states picked up his sermon, including the Boston Daily Globe and The Washington Post, which ran it on its front page. More than a hundred stories promoted Esper’s dire warning, an early example of a crackpot theory going viral. Of course, if the fearmongering prediction had been true, there would be no one left to read (or write) this.

A Teddy’s Bear made in 1903 is owned by the National Museum of American History. It’s in perfect condition. And the human race carries on.

national american teddy bear day

Happy National American Teddy Bear Day!

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Sadie Hawkins Day

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Sadie Hawkins DayToday is Sadie Hawkins Day, an American rite of passage for generations of teenagers. Misogynistic, antiquated, and awkward for all involved, it supposedly empowers girls to switch gender roles and ask out the boys. Did we mention it’s misogynistic and antiquated? Its true origin is much, much worse.

Sadie Hawkins was a character created in 1937 by Al Capp in his Li’l Abner cartoon, set in the fictional hillbilly town of Dogpatch, Kentucky. Sadie was the “homeliest gal in all them hills.” She waited in vain for a suitor to show up at her door, but not a single prospective husband came a-courting. After fifteen years, Sadie was in full panic mode, and her father didn’t want to support a spinster daughter for the rest of her life.

Sadie’s dad decided to get creative. He called all the unmarried men of Dogpatch together and declared it Sadie Hawkins Day. The town’s bachelors would run for their lives with Sadie in hot pursuit. The “lucky” man she caught would have to marry her. As her Pappy explained, “Th’ one she ketches’ll be her husband.”

Sadie_Hawkins_Day origin lil abner comic strip

The rest of the spinsters in Dogpatch (how many were there?) thought the race was an excellent idea and made Sadie Hawkins Day a mandatory yearly event, much to the chagrin of the bachelors in town, who had no say in the matter.

The Sadie Hawkins Dance appeared in the strip sometime later, taking place the night before the race. The spinsters wore hobnail boots to stomp on the feet of the single men, potentially making them easier to catch in the next day’s race.

The Li’l Abner comic strip debuted in 1934. From the start, it was bawdy and filled with sexual innuendo, not to mention scantily-clad, bucket-breasted women. But it was apparently considered wholesome family fare. In 1939, Life magazine ran a story stating that 201 colleges were celebrating Sadie Hawkins Day.

By 1952, it was reportedly celebrated at over 40,000 different locations. Eventually, it evolved into an all-day event. Capp wrote of the phenomenon:

It’s become my responsibility (to include Sadie Hawkins Day every year in the strip). It doesn’t happen on any set day in November; it happens on the day I say it happens. I get tens of thousands of letters from colleges, communities, and church groups, starting around July, asking me what day, so they can make plans.

Li’l Abner was an enormous success for its creator, who grew rich through merchandising, movie deals, product tie-ins, and a short-lived TV puppet show. In the 1960s, he underwent an ideological transformation from a New Deal Democrat to a hippie-hater and a close friend of Richard Nixon. He became a highly paid speaker on the college campus lecture circuit. His routine was to insult and provoke his audience into a shouting match.

sadie hawkins day al cappCapp attempted to use his fame to “seduce” young women. The biography Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary characterized him as something of a failed serial rapist since the few women who reported him to the authorities always got away. (Capp had lost one of his legs as a boy and routinely removed his prosthetic leg along with his pants.) One would-be victim described tipping him over like a floor lamp, as he crashed into the hotel furniture.

Of course, grotesque slapstick aside, there was nothing funny about his sexual assaults. And the winking acceptance by those who knew the truth underscored the culture’s lack of regard for young women. In 1971, Capp succeeded in physically forcing a 20-year-old Wisconsin college student to perform oral sex on him. To her credit, and against overwhelming pressure, the student pressed charges.

Capp was not charged with rape, but with three lesser counts: indecent exposure, sodomy, and “attempted adultery.” He was only found guilty of the latter. Although his career and reputation never fully recovered, he continued to publish the Li’l Abner comic strip until 1977. He died two years later.

Sadie Hawkins Day is not what it seems. She wasn’t a real person. It has nothing to do with women’s emancipation. What do you think? Does the true story of Sadie Hawkins Day and its twisted creator matter if no one knows it, or cares?  Should it continue to be celebrated as harmless fun or be consigned to the dustbin of history?

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