The Telephone Historical Centre is one of North America’s premier museums dedicated to telecom technology since 1876, featuring fully operating pieces that demonstrate its social and technical significance.
The Museum features a hands-on switchboard; an exhibit of a step-by-step private automatic branch exchange demonstrating its stepping switch principle; and a library containing telephone books and technical manuals.
Jefferson Telecom Telephone Museum
Jefferson Telecom Telephone Museum, housed in an 1896 building listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is an intriguing and fun attraction to visit. Showcasing an amazing collection of phones and phone-related equipment, self-guided tours are available as well as demonstrations. Furthermore, the facility serves as an Authorized Agent of US Cellular.
Executive Director Carol Johannes and Assistant Director Ken Schaper of Telecom Pioneers Museum were joined on St. Louis on the Air by former Southwestern Bell employees Carol Johannes (Executive Director) and Ken Schaper (Assistant Director), to discuss one of the first museums dedicated to chronicling telephone history in America. The museum operates under a separate organization known as Telecom Pioneers which represents retired employees.
The museum boasts an array of vintage technology in its collection, such as hand-crank phones that ran on giant dry-cell batteries and leg telegraphs that allowed users to send Morse code straight across. Furthermore, candlestick phones were common before voice technology took hold – these displays demonstrate this period in time.
The BellSouth Telephone Museum
This museum is one of the largest of its kind in North America, exploring telecommunications history from Alexander Graham Bell’s attic workshop to cutting-edge modern technologies. Perfect for families and children.
On display are working step-by-step private automatic branch exchange and switchboards, along with antique rotary phones, glass insulators, recreations of phone exchanges and non-Bell System telephone companies that served rural and small-town Midwest communities before integration of the Bell System.
The Museum is the brainchild of retired local telephone workers who collect and maintain exhibits. Although only open four hours each week, its exhibits make for a worthwhile visit; according to Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporting one 12-year-old child said it was “neat to look at and kind of cool”.
The Wisconsin Historical Society
The Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) collects objects and documents to preserve places of enduring value, interprets them for the public, educate people about their history and prehistory, publishes books and a quarterly magazine, conducts research, serves as an archive and Area Research Center, American history library at University of Wisconsin-Madison as well as boasting one of the two largest newspaper collections in the nation, plus visual ephemera collections that rival any.
Join WHS staff as they present on the various considerations involved in planning, creating and maintaining online local newspaper collections. Topics will include technological factors, metadata standards, access issues as well as future plans to enhance this resource for Wisconsin and beyond.
Discover how your organization can become an affiliate of the Wisconsin Historical Society and gain access to resources for establishing and running a local history program. The Society assists all non-profit community history and cultural organizations, publicly funded museums, tribal museums in Wisconsin with organizational steps such as writing bylaws and applying for tax-exempt status.
The Wisconsin Historical Foundation
The Wisconsin Historical Foundation connects people to their past through publications, expert professional advice to local historians and support for K-12 students and teachers. Additionally, traveling exhibits are also offered.
The museum’s Telephone Museum provides visitors with an engaging experience that explores communications technology first-hand. Visitors can explore a working switching station, learn about the origins of mobile telephones and see an assortment of historic telephones and telecommunications equipment on display.
The Museum’s ‘Telephone Workshops’ foster enthusiasm for engineering by using old and new telephones to compare semiconductor architecture. This helps foster the natural curiosity that gave rise to the telephone as it remains relevant today, driving innovation. Instrumentl is an easy-to-use platform that connects you with funders such as Wisconsin Historical Foundation Inc based on their 990 reports – join today and get started for free.
