Explore telecommunications history at this unique museum in Edmonton. Uncover its people, politics and equipment that helped change the world.
Sheldon Hochheiser is the Archivist at the Telephone Historical Centre’s expansive collection of early telephones and related equipment, which makes up its impressive research archive. We were given a tour of his phenomenal research archive.
The Story of the Telephone
The Telephone Historical Centre opened in Edmonton in 1987 and has grown exponentially ever since, boasting thousands of photographs, hundreds of telephone-related artifacts and oral histories from former phone workers – it has become one of Edmonton’s premier cultural attractions.
As soon as the first sound echoed down from Bell’s telephone, onlookers were floored. Hearing a voice from across the globe seemed almost magical – an extraordinary feat of engineering but more likely just an act of nature itself.
Antonio Meucci and Charles Bourseul had previously invented similar devices; however, Alexander Graham Bell won the patent through research and business planning in 1876. Bell’s invention soon transformed how we communicate; it allowed us to stay in contact with friends and family across the world while businesses flourished; it even made modernization possible in Alberta! Today it would be hard to imagine life without telephone.
The Archives
Archives at AT&T serve as a rich repository of source material for speech and hearing research, telephony/telecoms/communications engineering/processing/signal processing/electronic manufacturing industries. AT&T corporate historian Sheldon Hochheiser has an excellent grasp of its materials as well as any unique organizational idiosyncrasies of this centre.
Archival collection detailing the development and use of telephones by people since Alexander Graham Bell invented them in 1876 until present-day innovations in telecom.
The collection traces Alberta’s telecommunications history at an era when an ambitious province was being formed. This includes equipment, politics, competitions, personalities and stories that illustrate this period – it’s truly an incomparable archive that brings to life all of the magic that telecom has to offer!
The Collection
The Telephone Historical Centre’s collection encapsulates many facets of telecommunications in Alberta. From vintage operator switchboards and novelty phones, to hundreds of pieces of equipment and more, its collection showcases innovation, technology and the people who created it all. This museum tells an important tale.
The archives contain an impressive collection of telephone directories dating back over 140 years, technical manuals, and books on telecom. Furthermore, oral histories were conducted with former employees from within the telephone industry.
The collection is an extensive source of source material on electroacoustics, telecommunications and the history of Bell company. Arranged into twelve series with five loosely following the 1991 SNET records management schedule; remaining five alphabetically organized; it features unique original volumes such as The Telephone: An Account of Phenomena of Electricity Magnetism and Sound as Involved in its Actions with Instructions on its Construction with Instructions to Construct a Speaking Telephone from 1877.
Events
Students, researchers and those curious about history can delve into Edmonton’s rich telephone heritage at the archives. Vintage directories as well as technical manuals dating back to the 1800s can be found here; visitors can also experience an old telephone switchboard while learning about telecommunications technology at an interactive private automatic branch exchange exhibit. Unfortunately, after 31 years at Old Strathcona neighbourhood location the Telephone Historical Centre closed and now relocates to Prince of Wales Armouries Heritage Centre due to relevancy, financial issues and structural concerns as primary factors behind its relocation citing relevanceancy issues as major causes for its move.