The Hush-A-Phone was a device designed to attach to the transmitter of a telephone to reduce noise pollution and increase privacy. Sold by the Hush-A-Phone company, the device was frequently described in its commercial advertisements as "a voice silencer designed for confidential conversation, clear transmission and office quiet. Not a permanent attachment. Slips right on and off the mouthpiece of any phone". Hush-A-Phone Corp. (originally Hush-A-Phone Sales Corp.) was a company founded in New York in 1921 or 1922 to market the Hush-a-Phone. The device was the topic of a landmark court case, Hush-A-Phone v. United States. The Hush-A-Phone was regularly referred to in telecommunications policy analysis in the 1980s, attracting renewed interest in the 2000s as a symbol of a small company fighting against a monopoly, especially in the context of net neutrality. Indeed, because Hush-A-Phone eventually won its case against the phone company, the final legal proceedings involving the Hush-A-Phone turned out to be relevant to the eventual breakup of the Bell system. Advertisements for the Hush-A-Phone not only argued for its importance as an aid to privacy, but also noted the device improved clarity of sound, which AT&T would directly argue against.
History
1920–1948: early years The manufacture of Hush-A-Phones began in 1921, and the Hush-A-Phone company was first mentioned in The New York Times in a 1922 classified advertisement for a "typist-dictaphone operator". At this time, Hush-A-Phone was located in New York's Flatiron District, at 41 Union Square. Only a month later, the company advertised for a salesman, noting that 500 Hush-A-Phones were sold in one week at a business show. The company was still seeking a salesman in April 1922, but stopped posting dedicated sales openings until January 1923, this time noting several thousand Hush-A-Phones had already sold in New York. The company's first classified advertisement for the product appeared June 7, 1922, pricing the product at $10 and offering a free 5-day trial offer. A capital increase to the "Hush-A-Phone Sales Corp." company was announced on December 22, 1922, from $250,000 to $500,000, and in March 1923, the company's name changed from Hush-A-Phone Sales Corp., Manhattan, to Hush-A-Phone Corp. Some time between May 30, 1923, and October 18, 1923, Hush-A-Phone moved to 10 Madison Avenue, and by May 1924, the company had started suggesting that potential customers outside of New York wanting a demonstration would instead be sent a booklet.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 brought trouble to many companies. On October 20, 1929, Hush-A-Phone was advertised along with several other companies on the first page of The New York Times as part of the "National Business Show" being held in Grand Central Palace from October 21 to 24. The company was showing its handset model for the first time. The ad noted that Mr. H. C. Tuttle, President of the Hush-A-Phone Corporation, had just returned from a European tour of ten countries where the product would be distributed. The product was described as being "beautiful", made of bakelite, and "embellished with a work of art in bas-relief. It appears as a handsome desk clock, nine inches high, concealing its function as a Hush-A-Phone". Some time between October 1927 and December 1929, Hush-A-Phone moved from its Madison Avenue location to about seven blocks southwest to 43 W. 16th Street. Although one more advertisement appeared in 1929 (December 8, just in time for the holidays), Hush-A-Phone was absent from the Times until July 1934, when a four-line, text-only advertisement appeared. Advertisements in 1936 noted a new model "for French phone" was out, and in October 1937 the Hush-A-Phone company was exhibiting again, this time showing a 200-foot elastic telephone wire at the National Business Show. However, the four-line classified advertisements continued to be the company's public appearances after the show, appearing between ads for cigars and baldness cures, until 1942, when their product appeared in photographs in a few ads run by houseware store Lewis & Conger. In 1944 the company noted "Models for E-1 and F-1 Handset Phone; Pedestal Phone; Switchboard and Dictating Machines". In 1945, Hush-A-Phone ads began appearing in The Washington Post, and Hush-A-Phone consulted with acoustics expert Leo Beranek at MIT, who began work to design an improved silencer. Beranek would later bring in J. C. R. Licklider to help demonstrate the Hush-A-Phone retained clarity of sound. 125,796 Hush-A-Phone sets were sold between 1922 and 1949.
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