I went to a telephone museum in NH and it showed the old
switchboards. When you called the operator they would put a plug into a jack (so, if someone’s number was ‘31’ they’d
connect your call into that jack). Then came self dialing rotary phones
I remember seeing a very old TV show, World of Giants, about a spy who gets shrunk to 6 inches tall. He has to make an important call at once point...a night watchman was dead
and his full sized partner was out cold. So he had to climb up to the desk and laboriously dial the number—not easy at his size! Would be so much easier for him with a push button phone
I remember always calling the operator and asking for an Emergency Breakthrough to reach my teen girlfriends who were busy talking to each other, when I wanted to get through. We did this pretty much DAILY. The operator would break through the call personally to tell the girl she had an emergency breakthrough from me. The emergencies probably involved which boy talked to us between fourth and fifth period.