When did telemarketing first begin?

[pkbites]

I remember oh, about 10 years ago or so when the only time my phone rang is when someone I knew personally wanted to talk.
But I’m sure the evil profession of telemarketing is older than a decade. But by how much? When did the first jackass pick up the phone and call a stranger to beg for money?
I can’t image that folks in the first part of the last century would have put up with this nonsense.

[Ice_Wolf]

According to this site, telemarketing began in the 1960s. Federal legislation controlling the nuisance factor seems to have only come about in 1991.

[Squink]

**Have We Reached the Party To Whom We Are Speaking? **

Murray Roman is considered the father of telemarketing. In the late '60s he founded a shop in Manhattan called Campaign Communications, where he hired out-of-work actors to put some feeling into selling subscriptions for Saturday Review.

By the early '70s, telemarketing had spread across the country, but there were no advanced technologies, no market research, no training programs, no scripts.

[whitetho]

The earliest review I know that promoted telemarketing is Advertising by Telephone from the September 12, 1903 Western Electrician. And the oldest article I know of complaining about the practice is Housekeeper Objects to Telephone Advertising from the February 20, 1909 Telephony.