It was November 19, 1936, and the location was… 164 different cities and towns in the U.S. and Canada. The Telephone Pioneers celebrated their 25th anniversary, its Silver Jubilee, by organizing a massive, multi-location meeting with more than 25,000 Pioneers and guests total, all united by a telephone network that followed the events as they unfolded.
Chester Barnard, the association president and president of the New Jersey Bell Telephone Company, gave a rousing speech from Newark, New Jersey, praising the efforts of getting everyone together, despite the fact that they weren’t all in the same place. “Never before in the history of the world has there been such a convocation—continent-wide yet private to ourselves,” he said. “We are assembled at 167 separate gatherings of Pioneers in 164 cities, from St. John, New Brunswick, to San Diego, California; and from Miami, Florida to Edmonton, Alberta.”
The Telephone Pioneers had made a great many changes in those first 25 years, despite the fact that no meetings were held at all during World War I, and some of these changes had a significant impact on how the organization looks today.
In 1921, after the 1920 death of Theodore Vail, who had been the association president every year since 1911, the term of president was limited to one year (although Harry B. Thayer, who took over for Vail, was elected to two separate one-year terms, in 1920 and 1925). Under Thayer’s direction, and at the request of many Telephone Pioneers, the authorization was given to form local chapters, so members could participate in their own communities. In 1922, the first 12 chapters were chartered, and councils were added to the mix in 1930. Life Member classification was established in 1930, with the first Life Member Club formed in Canada’s Charles Fleetford Sise Chapter in 1935.
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