It was fading by the end of the ‘60s in the Midwest. I left for college in the fall of 1968 and took my selection of short white gloves with me. They were worn for campus convocations and going to church, as well as for formal dates or college mixers and similar social events. That was gone by ‘71-‘72.
That’s what elevator operators are for - to push those buttons for the passengers.
To clarify my glove story …
IIRC ladies’ gloves in public for ordinary activity, church, dinner parties, etc., had pretty well died out in the mid-late 60s except among the uber snooty old money fashion set. Think Jackie O.
It held on in Court for awhile thereafter. Or at least in that particular county court. Judges were (are?) amazingly stuffy sorts.
So what was the reason for ladies to wear those white gloves?
Who knows? Fashion is the main answer, I expect. But it was expected, at least in mid-to-upper class ladies at the time. And that meant little girls, too. I found this in the webs.
My summer job in the 1960s was as an elevator operator and doorman on Park Avenue in Manhattan. I had to wear white gloves. Most of the buildings where I worked had manual elevators, which were actually controlled by a switch. But the last building I worked in had automatic elevators with buttons that I pushed for the residents.
My mother and aunt had white gloves, but only wore them to go to church or formal occasions.
I’m younger than you, but for some reason, the Student Union where I went to college (in the 1980s!) had an elevator operator for the first few years I was there.
Was it a manual elevator, or an automatic one where the operator just pushed the buttons? I think in my building they kept the elevator operator as another level of security and to help with luggate.
With the manual elevator, you actually had to carefully align the elevator with the floor outside so people wouldn’t trip (something I was not so careful about with a few of the grouchier and non-tipping tenants.
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If I recall correctly, it was an automatic one (perhaps with an override key allowing the operator to ignore some calls (which made sense, since the elevator was used by both students and cafeteria staff, who would need higher priority)).
Isn’t that why old-tyme elevator operators were always saying “Step up please” or “Step down please”? Did you say that a lot?
Probably, but if you were any good you could get it pretty level.
Mind the gap!
In 1970 we spent about 2 months in Merida, Venezuela. We stayed at a hotel downtown and the thing to do at night was dress up and go out walking - promenading, as my father calls it - and if you saw friends you’d stop and talk; if they were home you’d talk to them through the window. We walked most nights to get out and get exercise and maybe get ice cream. My mother got kicked out of the Plaza Bolivar for wearing shorts and thus desecrating the memory of Simon Bolivar - women wore dresses.
We went back in 1973. Everyone wore jeans and promenading was over; TV was king.
All the phone talk reminded me of a phone artifact I haven’t thought about since the early 90s. At my first job (c. 1988) the phones were very restricted. Internal company calls were just the 5 digit extension. For local external calls - dial 9, then the 7 digit number. The phones would not put a long distance call through. Instead you’d get the recorded “We’re sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed” message.
I was a Unix Systems Administrator, and sometimes I needed to coordinate with other sites on our network, which meant long distance calls. I was approved for and blessed with a DIXIE card. I can’t remember what the acronym stood for. The card had a unique 6-digit PIN that only I could use that allowed me to make long distance calls. I had to dial a special access number, then enter my PIN, then enter the 10 digit long distance number. (No international calls allowed on that account - those required a different card). Personal calls were strictly forbidden and grounds for discipline.
The cards were highly coveted. One time a manager retired, and left his card in his desk when he left. Within a day, photocopies of his PIN were being circulated among the grunts. About a month later the shit hit the fan (probably when the phone bill showed up), the number was disabled, and we had a mandatory all-hands where we got yelled at for about 20 minutes. Surprisingly there was no way to trace the calls to individual phones; otherwise a lot of heads would have rolled.
Kind of related to ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness post, who remembers Calling Cards? It allowed you to make long distance calls from a hotel or pay phone by dialing a special number with some additional digits added. The call was then charged to your home phone and was cheaper than dropping change in the pay phone or paying the hotels higher rates.
I used one in the early 90’s when traveling overseas.
I had those for business travel (issued by the companies for which I worked), up through the early 2000s, once cell phones with free roaming became common. I had one for the home number, too, but it got much less use.
You can still buy calling cards, but now they’re mostly for international calling. Convenience stores and gas stations in areas with substantial immigrant populations will have a good stock for placing cheap calls to Mexico or India or Israel or wherever are common destinations for the locals.
Yeah, I had a calling card number. I wonder if my fingers still remember it…
I also had a long-distance calling code for my work phone - don’t remember that either
We had prepaid calling cards. So you’d buy from Costco or some place a card for ten dollars or so that allowed for 1000 minutes of long distance calling. So about a penny a minute.
This is way before the cards you’re referring to. These were not prepaid. They just allowed you to make calls that would be charged to another account. In my case my home phone. In other cases, a company account. I don’t recall the '94 rate from Saudi to St. Louis, but I’m pretty sure the Marriot would add a significant up charge. No cell phones either.