For a Carefree Vacation, Keep in Touch by Telephone

During the 1920s-30s, telephone service developed from a luxury facilitated by telephone operators, to a self-dialed consumer necessity. Or so the phone companies suggested. This series of three advertisements from 1940 envisions humorously disastrous fears as to what's happening back home, when an individual is on vacation. The New York Telephone Company lists several vacation spots from which to check up on a slumming husband or malingering employees. Using inflation-adjusted figures, however, a 3-minute phone call from Lake Placied to New York--on an evening or weekend--translates into more than $15. 

The illustrations are of interest because they were created by Federal Art Project painter Stephen R. Ronay, whose work The Life Boat is held by the New Deal Gallery in Mount Morris, NY. While that work is more serious in tone, it shares with much of Ronay's output from this period an interest in vibrant, chaotic scenes involving many people and actions--somewhat in the manner of William Hogarth.

Ronay, Stephen R[obert], 1900 - 1983

1940-08-05
1940-08-13
1940-08-19

New York Daily News 5 Aug 1940: 56
New York Daily News 13 Aug 1940: 73
New York Daily News 19 Aug 1940: 175

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Newspaper advertisement