Loading

Card game:Hel-Lo The Telephone Game

J.C. Singer1898

The Strong National Museum of Play

The Strong National Museum of Play
Rochester , United States

Though the first telephone services were installed in 1877, regular telephone service between New York City and Boston was not possible until 1894. And by 1899, central telephone exchange operators were known as "hello-girls" due to the association between the greeting and the telephone.Perhaps hoping to piggyback on the newfangled machine's success, J.C. Singer invented a game in 1898 called "Hel-Lo The Telephone Game." Though it is essentially a humorous reading answer game, players hold on to hollow wooden spools connected by string. Whether their voices carried through the device is not important. The humorous answers they read from the cards made the game uproarious.

Show lessRead more
  • Title: Card game:Hel-Lo The Telephone Game
  • Creator: J.C. Singer
  • Date Created: 1898
  • Location: New York, NY
  • Subject Keywords: telephone, word
  • Type: Card Games
  • Medium: printed cardstock, cardboard, paper
  • Object ID: 107.2978
The Strong National Museum of Play

Get the app

Explore museums and play with Art Transfer, Pocket Galleries, Art Selfie, and more

Home
Discover
Play
Nearby
Favorites