Riiiing! It's pretty easy to take our current wire-line telephone system for granted. You pick up the phone and get dial tone. You make a call across the street or across the nation and it connects in seconds. Call quality is nearly always perfect.

Just like any other new technology, however, introducing the telephone to prospective customers and building the massive infrastructure required to accommodate it all was incredibly challenging. This page is dedicated to help give this challenge some perspective, to offer some stories relating to the struggles of an early telephone industry, and to illustrate the marvelous success of the telephone system despite all these challenges.

Historical Perspective Features

Don’t tap on the diaphragm of the transmitter of receiver with a pencil or other article. You may injure the apparatus; the ear 
piece of the receiver may be removed and an examination of the diaphragm made. If bent, replace it with a new one and screw 
the cap until it sets firmly in place.
Don’t drop the receiver or throw it down; you are apt to break it if you do. The shell is made of hard rubber and is brittle
Don’t experiment with the interior mechanism if you are not posted on telephony.
Don’t talk in a loud voice because you do not hear the speaker at the other end of the line very well. The difficulty may be in your 
receiver.
Don’t expect satisfactory results when your receiver cord is broken, binding post screws loose, or where interior contacts have grown poor 
from want of attention. 
Don’t expect your telephone to give satisfaction if the batteries are exhausted or the connections at binding posts corroded. 
Don’t expect your telephone to operate if you have forgotten to hang up the receiver and left the battery on a short circuit for several 
hours; that is, not until it has recuperated, or you have replaced it with another.
Don’t place on top of the machine articles of metal. If you do, your telephone may short circuit and you cannot call out to line.
Don’t oil the hinges of the bell box.
Don’t open the door out of curiosity and then forget to lock it again.
Don’t short-circuit the instrument by jamming a lead pencil between the lightning arrester points.
Don’t stand too far from the transmitter while talking. Remember, a good telephone is so constructed that it will not gather up distant 
sounds and is adjusted with a view to short range operation. Talk from two to six inches from the mouthpiece according to the length of line 
over which you are talking and the privacy of your conversation. 
Don’t talk loud—it is unnecessary—but talk clearly and not too fast.
Don’t blame the telephone if you do not perfectly understand at all times the party at the other end of the line. Remember, that all voices 
are not alike; some are particularly well adapted to telephone conversation, while others are not. 
Don’t complain to the office that your telephone is out of order until you are sure of it. Trouble at the other end of the line will, in all 
probability, affect your own instrument.
Don’t forget to ring off when through talking.
Don’t expect to obtain good results unless you do your share in keeping up the apparatus and line. 
Don’t expect the best treatment in the world at the hands of exchange operators if you have given them the occasion to put your telephone on 
he list of "chronic kickers."
Don’t waste the operator’s time with useless talk. Remember, there are other subscribers to the exchange who also expect her prompt response to 
their calls.
Don’t lose your patience; you are simply powerless, and loss of temper only makes a bad matter worse. If the exchange is not treating you 
properly, report it, and if no relief is afforded, provided you are in the right, order your telephone taken out. 

Standard Tel. And Tel.
From: ABC of Telephone by James E. Homans, A.M., Second Revised Edition,
Theo. Audel & Co. Publishers, Copyrighted 1901 – 1904

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How to Operate the Dial on Your Automatic Telephone After the New System is in Service

"Consult the New Issue of the Directory, now being distributed, and obtain the number to be called.

Remove The Receiver  from the hook and listen for a steady, humming sound known as the "dial tone."  If you hear the dial tone, place your finger in the hole containing the first figure of the number to be called and pull the dial as far as it will go; then remove your finger and let the dial go back.  REpeat this operation for each figure in the number. If you do not hear the dial tone hang up the receiver on the hook and wait a few seconds before attempting to dial.

Copied from a full page ad placed by:
The Chesapeake # Potomac Telephone Co. appearing in the
Norfolk Dispatch Ledger, Monday, November 10, 1919"