The Telephone Book

In the year 2026, it is common to see people using personal phones with features that combine technology from the last one hundred years into a small hand-held device. These cellphones, smart watches, or hands-free technology allow you to talk to others, take pictures, do research, or navigate to locations you have never visited. This technology lets you retrieve information by voice command, like calling friends or family members, and it can be used anywhere at any time. The popular brands have names like Apple’s iPhone 17 or Samsung’s Galaxy series. A simple touch of the front of the device can entertain you, connect you with people, record videos, calculate numbers, or remind you of events for the day or month.

Cellular phones and car phones started appearing in American society in the 1980s and ’90s, with “smart phones” popping up in the early 2000s. Prior to those technological advances, phones were stationary in homes or in phone booths and were attached to wires. Home phones evolved into wireless versions but were still stationary with a longer range of communication from the base of the phone.

Phones were often not far from an accessory known as the telephone directory. The directory was a book of names and numbers of people who subscribed to a telephone service. This book also contained advertisements for businesses around the community it served. It had commonly needed information like phone numbers for schools, emergency and community services, entertainment options, religious groups, laundry service, and places to eat or get repairs on a vehicle. It often contained a blank space where you could write names and numbers of individuals or businesses you regularly accessed.

These now-little-used “books of information” are also a great resource when exploring the genealogy of a family or the history of a community.

If you avoid the bias of thinking your family member might have been “too poor” to have access to this equipment, you may be pleasantly surprised to find their name, phone number, and address plus maybe an advertisement for a family business. There may be a handwritten example of a family member’s writing. This book may provide details of who or what was important to your family during a specific time of life. Giving a glimpse into your family’s community, it lists names and locations of where they may have shopped for groceries or clothes. It lists who in the city was responsible for service connected to the death of an individual. It lists the educational facilities publicly available and reveals whether the time period was during legally segregated rules of engagement or after those rules were eliminated. Your ancestor may have been listed as a barber or beauty salon operator.

When researching family history, a telephone directory may give you a clue to extended family members sharing a surname or a title attached to an ancestor that oral history did not carry forward. While people might joke that something is “as boring as reading the phone book,” the telephone directory is a meaningful source of information for anyone researching family or community history.

Come see us in the Research Room of the CALS Roberts Library to view some of the historical telephone books we have in the closed stacks. Visit the CALS website (opens in new window) for Roberts Library visiting information (opens in new window).

By Rhonda Stewart, genealogy and local history specialist for the Central Arkansas Library System’s Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, housed in the CALS Bobby L. Roberts Library of Arkansas History & Art