Took a while for the depression to finally sink in for Bell. Not implying any modern implication, just thought provoking.

From the book Telephone The First Hundred Years

It took almost three years before there was an impact. And it was massive. The company had only known growth and was built to only grow. They couldn’t cope with a shrinking subscriber base.

Western Electric ended up laying off 80% of their employees.

If it weren’t for an upgrade from manual to dial phones they would have laid off 98%!!

A double blow was the depression was deflationary. But regulators didn’t grasp deflation and built for rising prices simply held them steady crushing consumers.

Also of note. Bell was the first “public” owned that was run by corporate managers vs bankers.

In the early 20th century this was unheard of.