In America, for a time the Bell Telephone company tried to use boys on roller-skates as operators; but, well, boys will be boys. So the firm switched to women. Almon Brown Strowger, an undertaker, was convinced that one or more of his rivals were bribing the operators to redirect business away from him. He invented a device that allowed customers to select phone numbers with a dial on their subscriber sets, by sending pulses to devices at switching stations. Over the course of the 20th Century, operator-assisted selection became decreasingly important.