Corporate archives

Corporate archives preserves past while serving our present
From Vision, Volume 6, Number 7, April 6, 1998

The phone rings at your Ameritech work station and a voice, perhaps belonging to a student, asks a question that he or she believes any employee of a major communications company could answer: “Who was the first U.S. president to have a telephone in the Oval Office?”

You say to yourself, “How would I know?” Then you tell the caller you don’t know, but will find out, all the while wondering who could provide that information. The answer: Ameritech’s corporate archives in Chicago.

“I get a lot of questions about telephone history,” said Bill Caughlin, manager - corporate archives. Yes, he has the answer to those questions, but the archives isn’t in business to aid Trivial Pursuit players. There are, however, many important functions the archives serves, including:

Identifying and collecting corporate records of legal, fiscal, administrative and historical value to the company; Organizing, arranging, describing and preserving the archival collection in a protected, controlled environment; and providing research assistance to authorized users while protecting the confidentiality of privileged and proprietary information.

Although the archives occupies only two rooms (1,350 square feet), its contents span to the 1870s. The collection includes thousands of photographs, annual reports, employee publications, executive speeches and biographical files. The collection also preserves press releases, policy manuals, advertisements, marketing brochures, organizational charts, videotapes and other links to the history of Ameritech and its predecessor companies.

“Most of our work serves internal needs, such as meeting the urgent demands of corporate’s legal and communications department, the business units and state organizations,” Caughlin said, “but we also receive requests from researchers outside the company.”

One of the more intriguing requests came from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

“An agent investigating a 1957 homicide involving arson needed an Addison, Ill., phone directory from that year,” Caughlin said. “I had it on microfilm.”

Other requests come from students doing research for class projects and from phone collectors and museum curators.

“We have representative models of telephones going back to the 1879 ‘coffin’ phone,” Caughlin said, describing a phone that looked a bit like a final resting place. The archives also displays other memorable models such as the Sculptura, a phone made like a “0” standing on its side and the popular Princess and Trimline phones from the 60s and 70s.

“The archives is essential to the company at a time when there’s increased competition for services,” Caughlin said. “Our long-standing relationship with our customers is a valuable corporate asset.”

And in case you’re wondering - the first president to let his fingers do the walking was Rutherford B. Hayes, our 19th commander in chief, whose phone was installed in 1878.

To reach the president, you simply would have dialed “1.” To contact others, Hayes consulted a phone directory that consisted of a single newspaper-size sheet. Today, the Washington, D.C., phone directory requires two volumes and 2,300 pages. To contact the corporate archives, call 312/441-1769.

Brian Fairbanks, contributing writer

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