Western Electric type 100 desk telephone

Throughout much of the 20th Century, Western Electric designed and manufactured most of the equipment used by the AT&T Bell Telephone Company. This model 100, A-type desk telephone was made by Western Electric in 1928 and featured a so-called “French” handset. For both technical and commercial reasons most Bell Company telephone sets featured separate transmitters and receivers until the mid 1920s. By that time designs that combined the transmitter and receiver into a single handset gained popularity in France and phone with that feature became known by the term “French phone.”