Americans of the 1870's were no different than today in how fast a technological innovation is accepted and rapidly built upon. When Alexander Graham Bell made the first transmission of a human voice in March of 1876, it was just two short years before his tangled collection of wires and springs had been packaged and made available for commercial use. The Connecticut Telephone Company of New Haven was formed in 1878 and the state of Connecticut became the first state to host a commercial telephone exchange. The 21 subscribers' homes and businesses were haphazardly strung together with wires all connecting to the company's main switchboard located on a kitchen table set up in a rented office. By 1880 the Connecticut Telephone Company expanded to include a Hartford Division and in September, 1880 issued this 12 page telephone directory. Measuring approximately 4 1/4" x 6 3/4", the soft cover book is delicately bound with a thin cord. Ten of the pages list the subscribers in alphabetical order, with businesses like the "Weed Sewing Machine Company" mixed in with residents such as "Clemens, Samuel L." - yes THAT Samuel Clemens! As well as being a literary innovator he was also fascinated with the latest technological advances and was a life-long friend of inventors Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. When the first telephones came on the market it was only natural that a technology junkie like Clemens would be one of the first to sign up. Clemens built a home in Hartford for his family in 1873 and wrote his first masterpiece "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876) in the Connecticut town. At the time he was modestly listed on the last line of page 4 as "Clemens, Samuel L., author, 95 Farmington" he had yet to write "Life on the Mississippi" (1883), "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1885), and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (1889). When this directory was issued in September of 1880 the author was putting the finishing touches on "A Tramp Abroad" (1880), a travelogue of his European adventures.

The directory is in stunning condition considering that it was used as a reference and meant to be discarded when the new version arrived. The reason for its survival is that it has been kept with the important papers of the Goslee family of Hartford. The Goslee's were one of the first families of Hartford, settling the area in the late 1600's. The book's original owner was Owen Edward Goslee (1853-1921). Goslee is not listed in this directory, most likely because they subscribed after the book was printed and before the next issue was published. Owen Goslee must have kept this as a memento of the family's very first telephone. The directory was handed down to Carlan Hollister Goslee (1886-1970) and has remained a treasured family heirloom up to the present day, as one can tell from the amazing condition of the book considering its age and frailty of the paper it is printed on. The pages are brittle and have some minor tearing on the binding edge, but all remain securely bound together. The cover has some soiling on the bound edge and some slight tearing along the top. There is a stray 1 1/2" long black fountain pen line on the bottom of the cover. The inside pages remain clean and preserved including the one featuring Samuel Clemens. All in all, remarkable shape for the second oldest telephone directory on the planet.

To date only one earlier telephone directory has been offered for public sale. The first, issued in New Haven in February 1878, consisted of a single one-sided sheet. The second the first proper "telephone book", a 4 page booklet published in November 1878 which Christie's sold at auction for $170,000 in 2013.  Ours is the next oldest to have survived and be issued for public sale ,and is all the more significant in that it lists America's most beloved author as one of the subscribers. A true piece of American history marking the very beginning of the technology age. After publication of the printed catalog we have been informed that certain 1879 directories exist at a CT Museum and the AT+T Museum.

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