This 1919 Cartoon Depicting the Use of a ‘Pocket Telephone’

In March 1919, the Daily Mirror newspaper published a cartoon by the English cartoonist and caricaturist, William Kerridge Haselden (1872–1953), predicting the invention – and some of the effects – of the ‘pocket telephone’.

The cartoon was placed alongside other situations where this ‘pocket telephone’ might prove a personal annoyance and social nuisance: whether it be on a busy train, when you’re in a hurry, at a concert, with babies, or even when you’re at the alter.

It was not until 54 years later, in 1973, that the first handheld cellular mobile phone was demonstrated in public by John F. Mitchell and Martin Cooper of Motorola.