Abstract
The aim of this paper is to examine the social condition of the telephone and its users in 1950s. The telephone of today is one of the most common means of communication and forms a universal network, whereas in those days the telephone was still very rare and uncommon. Rapid popularization of the telephone in Japan started from 1960s, so there are two questions: How did the telephone had pass the critical stage in the process of rapid popularization? Who contributed to that popularization by adopting the telephone at the very beginning? To answer these questions, we take the example of Kamakura City, Kanagawa Prefecture in 1950s, and investigate the profile of early users and their ways of using the telephone. The findings of this analysis show social usage of the telephone and development of its network in these periods was reflected in social activity in the local community. In 1950s, the telephone network was growing as a community medium.
