April 19, 2006
The Yellow Pages Posted by John Steele Gordon at 12:00 PM EST The Yellow Pages have been around a long time—120 years, in fact. R. H. Donnelly produced the first business phone book categorized by type of business or service in 1886. (In 1883 a printer ran out of white paper on which to print a regular phone book and substituted yellow paper instead, but that doesn’t really count). R. H. Donnelly’s bright idea came just 10 years after Alexander Graham Bell said, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you,” which gives a good indication of just how fast the telephone spread through the American business community after its invention. It would spread much more slowly in private residences, however. In fact, the first year when more than half of American households had a telephone was 1946. Slowly but surely the phone books, both white and yellow, began to push an older competitor, the city directory, out of existence. City directories had to be purchased, but phone books were handed out free to subscribers. The oldest city directory I know of was for New York printed in 1786. It would fit easily into a shirt pocket. The last New York directory was printed in the early 1930s. It would not fit easily into a backpack. But the yellow pages, and probably the white ones as well, now seem doomed in their turn. This morning I needed a place to get passport photos taken and, being of a certain age, I went instinctively to the yellow pages. I could not find anything near me. Then, like Homer Simpson, I smacked my forehead, said, “Doh!” and went to Google. I had a place and even driving directions within 15 seconds. Google is quite as free as the yellow pages, far more comprehensive (I could probably find a place to have passport photos taken in Bangalore if I wanted one), faster, yields more information, and doesn’t require the sacrifice of heaven knows how many thousands of acres of Canadian trees. About the only downside to Google, it seems, is that it is no good at all for bringing a six-year-old up to the right height for eating at a dining room table. The yellow pages will hang on for a while, just as the city directory did, because people are used to them. But when that six-year-old is 56, they will be as dim a memory as dialing zero to make a long-distance call is to us.
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