Antedating of "yellow pages" (1930)

[Alice Faber]

Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>This reminds me of another claim for local primacy (in addition to
>pizza and hamburger, both sadly debunked, and frisbee, which remains
>open):  I've heard it claimed that New Haven is the home of the first
>phone book (not yellow pages), called "The Book of Names".  When I
>first came here in '81, they were still calling the local phone book
>The Book of Names, but now it's just called the Greater New Haven
>Directory.
>

I have a vague recollection the Alexander Graham Bell museum in
Baddeck, Nova Scotia, run by the Canadian National Park Service, has
some piece or another supporting this claim, perhaps a copy of said
phone book. I could be vaguer if I tried, I suppose.

--
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Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                                     fax (203) 865-8963