This museum boasts both an entertaining and educational collection that pays homage to those who designed, erected poles, buried lines, and constructed telephone systems worldwide. Housed within an old telephone building, the collection boasts one of the largest collections in North America.

Archives at this facility house unique original volumes including vintage telephone directories and technical manuals, along with crank wall phones and decorator phones from bygone years. Visitors may also discover crank wall phones or decorator phones from this era.

The Museum of Independent Telephony

In 1990, a small group of retired and active telephone employees formed the Telecommunications History Group (THG). Alarmed by reports that historical items were being lost due to building relocation, department closure or personnel changes, they decided to form the non-profit Gridley Museum of Independent Telephony that has since grown significantly since.

The museum features a recreation of an old telephone exchange, with displays of glass insulators and antique phones from yesteryear. Additionally, this tribute pays homage to all the many small independent telephone companies which came into being after Alexander Graham Bell’s patent rights expired in the mid-1890s, serving much of rural America with telephone service.

The museum features an impressive collection of original hand-crank wall phones installed by local farm families, in addition to an operating manual switchboard equipped with Step-by-Step private automatic branch exchange and an extensive assortment of rotary dial phone systems.

The Roseville Telephone Company

Roseville Telephone Museum chronicles a century of communications technology. Spanning 4,500-square feet, this museum displays one of the nation’s finest collections of antique telephones and equipment from early switchboards to novelty phones – sure to engage visitors of any age or technical background! Professional curators guide visitors through these exhibits, creating an entertaining and educational experience. From early switchboards to novelty phones – every visit here offers something new!

Before opening to the public in 1994, this company spent five years collecting and curating various types of telephones and equipment from both domestic and international manufacturers. Additionally, their museum features an impressive display of colorful line insulators.

Today, the museum serves as a research facility for SureWest Telecommunications Company. The facility makes for an enjoyable family outing or school field trip destination; knowledgeable docents–current or retired employees volunteering their time–are on hand to guide visitors through the exhibits.

The Oklahoma Museum of Telephone History

Oklahoma City boasts numerous national-caliber museums such as the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum and National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, but the local area also features niche museums – one being Oklahoma Telephone Museum which showcases more than 100 years of telephones and telecom memorabilia. Old-fashioned switchboards from when callers spoke with operators before placing calls can also be found here, as well as tools used for installation and maintenance purposes – like wax pots for dipping spliced cables; stretchers to tighten cables; Wheatstone bridges were used to measure resistance – to pinpoint trouble spots quickly!

Bob McCoy, who retired as an engineer for Southwestern Bell, donated part of his collection to this museum at 111 Dean A McGee Avenue; today it contains thousands of items that show how telephone technology has developed over time. Admission is free.

The New Hampshire Telephone Museum

The New Hampshire Telephone Museum in Warner, NH began as the personal collections of several people with careers in telecommunications. Today it boasts an astounding array of over 1000 artifacts providing an invaluable look into communications technology evolution.

The museum houses everything from switchboards and rotary phones, wooden wall-mount telephones and phone booths. Candlestick phones and the first flip phones as well as novelty princess phones can be found. Furthermore, this museum reflects how design trends changed when plastic phones became widely available.

Laura French, director of the museum, loves to highlight that many advances in telecommunications occurred in approximately 150 years – from Alexander Graham Bell’s accidental invention of the telephone in 1876 all the way through to today’s advanced smart phones and wireless devices. It serves as an important reminder of just how far our world has progressed since 1876!

This museum preserves telecommunication history through working rotary dialers, manual switchboards, linemen’s pole climbing stirrups, an impressive collection of fun phones, and much more – one of North America’s premier telephone museums!

Our Telephone Workshops promote an interest in engineering by teaching children and adults electrical theory, screw driving skills and historical technical events in an interactive learning environment.

Educational Programs

The Museum offers an engaging history lesson of telecommunications technology and systems from Alexander Graham Bell’s Gallows Frame Phone to Thomas A Watson’s Thumper Phone as well as modern mobile phones in use today. Additionally, museum exhibits feature manual switchboards, working telecommunications equipment for linemen’s use as well as an impressive collection of glass insulators among many other interesting artifacts.

School outreach programs focus on community issues and skills that directly affect student lives. Museum educators collaborate with classroom teachers to conduct lessons that meet social studies curriculum standards.

Telephone Workshops aim to spark participants’ interest in engineering by using historical telecommunications artifacts as hands-on learning environments for exploring electricity and electric theory. These workshops promote STEM by cultivating and encouraging participants’ inherent curiosity – such as that which drove Alexander Graham Bell in creating his telecommunications inventions – as well as providing an appreciation of engineering in the workplace.

Community Outreach

The Telephone Historical Centre is one of North America’s premier telephone museums. Established by retired ED TEL employees in December 1987 in Old Strathcona, it later relocated to Prince of Wales Armouries Heritage Centre where visitors can take group and individual tours as well as interactive exhibits that illustrate communications principles alongside an outstanding multi-media historical telecommunications theatre show!

Museum visitors experience an exciting journey into the history of communications technology and systems – from Alexander Graham Bell’s attic workshop to modern mobile phones. Visitors can explore a manual switchboard, step inside a replica of a local small town Midwest independent telephone exchange and admire HBEC staff and CAB members’ collection of glass insulators. Due to cancellation of in-person research events and health education during Covid-19 pandemic, they designed this telephone outreach project as a means of keeping registry participants engaged; callers collected data on their experiences during pandemic as well as recommended resources tailored specifically towards participants’ expressed needs.

Corporate Events

Established by retired employees of ED TEL in 1987, this non-profit 501c (3) museum collects, researches, organizes, documents, and displays telephone equipment from across North America. As one of North America’s premier telephone museums, its specialty lies in working equipment that illustrates tangible aspects of telecom history ranging from Alexander Graham Bell’s wall-mount phone to pocket mobile phones of today.

The museum provides students and adults with an engaging way to gain an understanding of communications technology. Visitors can step inside an authentic Step-by-Step private automatic branch exchange demonstrating its stepping switch principle; explore an old-fashioned rotary dial phone and manual switchboard; or browse a collection of telephone insulators.

The Museum is managed entirely by volunteers, who oversee all aspects of its facility. Volunteer opportunities range from giving tours and overseeing youth activities to cataloguing artifacts professionally – some positions even require formal artifact handling training as well as experience working within libraries or teaching environments.

Volunteer Opportunities

Volunteers of various skills and experiences are needed at our museum. From helping maintain its cleanliness to staffing the reception desk or greeting tour groups, as well as performing clerical work or sales at our museum store and general duties – there’s plenty of ways you can assist us!

Docents from museums across Atlanta provide guided tours for visitors of the History Center, Brookside Museum and outdoor exhibits. In addition, museum docents participate in educational outreach programs that bring the museum directly into schools and nursing homes.

Artifact assistants work alongside collection management staff in cleaning, cataloguing and preparing museum objects for display. In addition, they assist with genealogy research using the Society’s vast resources to uncover family histories.

The Museum houses an impressive selection of wooden wall-mount telephones; antique manual and candlestick phones; rotary dial phones and switchboards as well as line insulators and related equipment – an intriguing display of western Pennsylvania heritage! Volunteers engage children of all ages through this fascinating display of heritage.

The Telephone Historical Centre preserves and exhibits antique telephones and telecommunications equipment. As North America’s premier museum of its kind, this attraction is sure to entertain all ages.

Discover the history of communications technology from Alexander Graham Bell’s attic workshop to modern mobile phones. Step inside a manual switchboard or Step-by-Step private automatic branch exchange which illustrates stepping switch principle; explore glass insulators collection; step inside manual switchboard.

Educational Programs

The Telephone Historical Centre is one of North America’s premier telephone museums, dedicated to collecting, researching, organizing, documenting, exhibiting and preserving historical materials on telecom developments locally and worldwide. Established by retired ED TEL employees in December 1987 in Old Strathcona before relocating to its current home at Prince of Wales Armouries Heritage Centre in 2004.

Our museum exhibits offer a fascinating journey through communications history from Alexander Graham Bell’s attic workshop to today’s mobile phones. Their vast collection features antique telephones and equipment, manual switchboards, recreations of independent telephone exchanges that served rural Midwest communities outside Bell System exchanges as well as glass insulators from every era imaginable.

Classroom Outreach programs offer teachers and their students an educational experience that meets state social studies standards while using authentic artifacts as teaching tools. Our educators can visit your school, community education center or business to host an engaging interactive lesson focusing on telecommunications history.

School Outreach

School outreach programs introduce students to community issues while stimulating skills development that they can apply directly in their daily lives. By amplifying students’ voices by connecting economic, political, and societal forces that affect them directly, school outreach programs empower young people to become agents of change within their local communities.

The Telephone Historical Centre gathers, researches, organizes, documents, displays and stores historical materials pertaining to North America’s telecom history. With a museum, library and outstanding archive encompassing physical items as well as digital resources – it is truly an institution with something for everyone in this regard!

Join the museum on an engaging exploration of communications history with an interactive tour through their exhibitions spanning from Alexander Graham Bell’s attic workshop to pocket cell phones! Explore a working manual switchboard, discover the science of telecom systems and technology, visit our amazing glass insulators collection and gain insight into non-Bell System telephone exchanges that served small town Midwest communities and rural areas – not forgetting tools of trade for linemen as well as recreation of one such independent exchange!

Community Outreach

The Telephone Historical Centre provides an unparalleled account of North American telecommunication history through an impressive collection and archives. As one of the premier telephone museums, it features phones and related items dating from Alexander Graham Bell’s attic workshop to today. Visitors can explore rotary dials, manual switchboards, working telecommunications equipment and tools of trade used by linemen at this interactive museum. Furthermore, an outstanding display of glass insulators pays homage to rural and small town Midwest communities outside Bell System exchanges served by independent phone companies that offered phones services outside Bell System exchanges through an impressive collection.

The Museum provides an active community outreach program through classroom outreach visits for schools and local organizations, featuring staff engaging with classroom teachers to craft engaging lessons using historical artifacts suitable for all age ranges of students. This service is offered free to schools. In addition, the Be Seen Yonkers Campaign distributes free reflective armbands to residents to keep walkers, joggers and runners safe on local roadways.

Volunteer Opportunities

Community outreach is essential to building healthy communities, from disseminating informational pamphlets about new health and safety regulations to designing interactive educational games and exhibits that educate children and visitors. Volunteers play an integral role in many forms of community outreach activities ranging from helping out at events or programs in person to cataloguing and preserving historical artifacts for future generations.

Are You Looking for Volunteer Opportunities? Visit Our Volunteer Opportunities Page Today and Find Something Fits. From home-based volunteering options to international trips, there’s sure to be something available!

The Telephone Historical Centre is one of North America’s premier telephone museums and serves to preserve telecommunication history through research, collecting, organizing, documenting, displaying and storing historical materials relating to local and worldwide developments in telecommunications. Established by former employees from ED TEL in December 1987 in Old Strathcona for temporary exhibition purposes only before moving permanently to Prince of Wales Armouries Heritage Centre for permanent exhibit. This museum exhibits both technical and social significance through fully operational pieces exhibited as part of its multi-media Telecommunications Theatre show.

The Telephone Historical Centre aims to preserve the history of telecommunications technology. Established by retired employees from ED TEL and opened to the public in 1987, this unique museum boasts a working switchboard as well as being accredited with Museums Alberta.

Visitors to this museum can test out crank phones and touch a complex panel switchboard with many holes for switching, while learning about the transition of wooden box phones to metal ones.

ED TEL Telephone Museum

ED TEL Telephone Museum’s collection of wooden and metal phones, early switchboards and novelty items offers visitors an engaging journey down memory lane. Many volunteers at the museum are former operators and phone company workers themselves and can share years of knowledge in just an hour-long tour.

The museum is designed as a hands-on experience, so visitors are encouraged to disassemble items. Visitors can also learn about electricity and engineering by using a technician’s bench featuring an old rotary telephone dial as an example for staff to demonstrate its operation.

The museum features equipment and tools from New Mexico’s telephone industry, such as linemen’s pole climbing stirrups and office telephone computer machines. An antique line insulators display honors the history of telecom in New Mexico. Furthermore, there is a magneto switchboard used by Roseville Telephone Company back in 1914 that can also be found here.

The Museum of Independent Telephony

Once an integral and widespread feature of America’s countryside, open wire telephone lines that once connected each farm have all but disappeared today. While you may occasionally come across isolated one-arm lines here and there, these instances are increasingly rare compared to their former prevalence. At the Museum of Independent Telephony you can get an idea of their former prevalence thanks to photographs by Robert Stewart taken over time.

The museum boasts an extensive collection of communication artifacts spanning three decades. This includes Samuel Morse’s own telegraph device for sending his famous communication code and an operational phonograph that plays records when manually wound up.

The museum features telephone sets and switches as well as many antique line insulators from different eras of telephone history, along with archival materials and books about telephone history. Group and individual tours are offered here. Established by retired employees of Edmonton Telephone Exchange Ltd in 1987, however in April 2019 its foundation voted to dissolve due to relevancy, financial issues, and structural problems cited as causes.

The New Hampshire Telephone Museum

Warner is home to the New Hampshire Telephone Museum, offering visitors a tangible history of telecommunications. Manager Paul Violette continues his family’s long legacy in telecom; his grandfather Alderic O. “Dick” Violette worked at various independent phone companies for nearly ninety years – an achievement Paul was proud to inherit as manager.

The museum provides guided or self-guided tours, featuring an expansive collection of phones ranging from rotary models, candlestick phones, wooden wall-mount phones, phone booths, Princess phones, flip phones and flip phones – including rotary models, candlestick phones, wooden wall mount phones, phone booths Princess phones and flip phones. In addition, exhibits feature a working switchboard as well as linemen’s tools as well as parts from Alexander Graham Bell’s original device.

Visitors will gain insight into how early customers shared phone lines, with local switchboard operators aware of all their personal details. Visitors will hear about the “accidental invention” of the telephone and view parts from its inventor’s original device; additionally they will discover how early customers received calls via special signals such as two short rings followed by one long ring to receive their calls.

The Danner Museum of Telephony

The Danner Museum of Telephony honors communication design and technology before Apple came along, featuring exhibits like Alexander Graham Bell’s wooden-framed experimental transmitter/receiver invention as well as Edmonton’s inaugural import phone, classic rotary dial phones and even Thomas A. Watson’s humper phone used to communicate with Alexander Graham Bell over telegraph wires.

At Fort Concho, the Danner Museum’s collection resides in Officers’ Quarters 4. An elegant staircase leads up to an inviting circular gallery painted a rich chocolate brown hue; light from vertical wall-mounted vitrines as well as freestanding ones placed throughout illuminates this area of space.

Karl Fritsch is a contemporary jewelry artist and former student of Junger and Kunzli at Munich Art Academy, now curating at Danner. His fresh approach will reinstall collections in March 2020 – his third since Hermann Junger took charge in 2004.

Telephone Historical Centre Collections provides an amusing yet insightful glimpse at communications technology, showing how its advancement has altered our daily lives. This collection showcases phones from manual systems when line switching was performed by switchboard operators at local exchanges.

Kids of all ages will enjoy giving a try at being 1920s rotary dial operators or testing how loudly they can talk on an old wind-up ringer phone from this era. There is also an intriguing display of red telephone boxes which have become increasingly rare throughout Britain.

The History of the Telephone

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876 when he created a system to transmit speech electronically. Although initially intended as an improvement to harmonic telegraph transmissions, Bell’s invention eventually transformed into what we know today as the telephone.

He and his team also pioneered an effective long-distance telephone line to enable communication over vast geographical distances. The development of telephone technology revolutionized business.

This collection records the work of generations of men and women who built poles, laid cables, designed and managed technology to make telephone possible. There are various exhibits in the collection such as Step-by-Step Automatic Branch Exchange that demonstrate manual switchboards using stepping switches; as well as Mobile Telephone Evolution from 1970s Car Phones through Current Cellular Technology.

The Evolution of the Telephone

Telecommunications technology advances are rapid and ever-evolving. Touch-tone dialing replaced rotary phones in the early 1970s, while AT&T established its transatlantic telephone cable network for worldwide callers to easily and efficiently connect.

While most credit Alexander Graham Bell with inventing the first telephone, some argue otherwise. It appears he and Elisha Gray invented their devices at roughly the same time; however, Bell filed his patent first and became widely acknowledged as its inventor. Whatever its source of invention may have been, its impact has been monumental; today phones are an everyday form of communication and have transformed how people connect to one another and access information.

The Telephone Industry

The telecommunications industry, comprising telephone, long distance telephone calls, cable/video television services, radio broadcasting networks and closed computer networks is highly sensitive to economic, technological and regulatory trends, evolving from several natural monopolies into an industry marked by dynamic competition.

Hello, Montreal! is an exhibition dedicated to the history of telecommunications from 1874 up until today. Featuring oversize models and installations, audiovisual presentations, background projections, songs sung during different periods of telephony as well as interactive activities, it promises to delight visitors of all ages. First opening its doors on December 3, 1987 in Edmonton’s Old Strathcona neighborhood before moving later that same year to its current home at Prince of Wales Armouries Heritage Centre.

The Telephone in the Home

Telephones have long been an essential component of everyday life. From single phones in hallway niches to complex multi-function devices, our collection demonstrates how technology has progressed over time.

Bell plant employees saw obsolete telephones as an opportunity for research and exhibition purposes, collecting them for future exhibits and research purposes. Their extensive collection allows us to trace Edmonton telephone history from manual switching through automatic switching; celebrating generations of workers who erected poles and laid cables – an impressive tangible record of our telecommunications heritage! Visiting this museum makes an enjoyable and educational family outing or school field trip experience.

The Telephone in the Workplace

By the early 1930s, workplace telephones had become an everyday fixture. Yet their use wasn’t necessarily seen as an indicator of equality in the workplace: for instance, one insurance company printed in their phone book that private calls to employees were forbidden.

The Connections Museum showcases an expansive collection of telephone equipment, many of which still works. From Alexander Graham Bell’s actual phone that he used to speak his iconic words to an operational hands-on switchboard, the Connections Museum provides a fascinating peek into communications history.

Take a virtual tour of this stunning museum for free, without pop-up ads or banners, as the webmaster pays for space on this website.

The Telephone in the Community

Prior to the invention of the telephone, people communicated via letters. With its invention, however, came instant communication worldwide via telephones; this has had a tremendously profound impact on society as we now use these devices more and more to connect with one another.

This exhibition pays a fitting homage to all of those who worked in telephony during its early days, from those responsible for installing poles and cables underground, through to designing and managing network technology.

The Gridley Telephone Museum is an incredible repository of knowledge. Conceived by Rogers Kaufman, former president of Gridley Telephone Company. This expansive collection will draw in visitors of all ages.