In the first decades of widespread telephone use, telephone companies had to find uses for the new instrument, show their customers how to work it, and instruct them about the proper etiquette surrounding calls. This simple unadorned poster reminds new telephone subscribers to Pacific Telephone and Telegraph (PT&T), unfamiliar with its functions, that they might need to let the phone ring a little before hanging up. By 1930, telephones were installed in some 41 percent of American homes but new subscriptions (at least until 1931 when the phone industry began to experience a significant downtown due to the Depression) were increasing faster than actual calls. People had the new devices but many seem to have used them only rarely.