While this poster showing an illustration of a pole vaulter advertises the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Track Meet, held at Edward’s Field in Berkeley, California in both 1935 and 1937, it was issued by the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company and was primarily intended to encourage telephone usage. By the 1930s, telephones had been a standard fixture in middle-class American homes and businesses for two decades. The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company provided service in California. Callers could make local calls directly by the time this poster was published but they still had to contact the long-distance operator for inter-city calls.