Roseville Museum houses one of the world’s largest collections of antique telephones and telecommunications technology, celebrating over 100 years of telephone communications both locally and worldwide.
This collection includes wooden box phones, candlestick and classic rotary telephones as well as displays of cases filled with various insulators in various shapes and sizes. Additionally, there is a working Step Switch (XY switch) from Clinton Central Office along with partial panel systems as well as many pieces of equipment stored.
History of the Telephone
The telephone is one of the world’s greatest technological inventions and its history is full of fascinating tales of innovation, culture, and people.
Alexander Graham Bell is often credited with inventing the telephone, but there were other inventors working on similar ideas prior to his patent in 1876. Italian innovator Antonio Meucci built a telephone-like device in 1849 while Charles Bourseul published a detailed account of its transmitter and receiver in L’Illustration magazine in 1854.
Our collection features working telephones that are interconnected by our extensive central office type switching system, providing tangible evidence of how telecommunication technology has advanced from its beginning in the late 1800s until today. Incorporating telephones from every era allows visitors to see the development of our telecommunication network over time.
Telephone Switchboards
Once telephones became ubiquitous, telephone companies needed a way to link people. Enter the switchboard: an enormous box where operators plugged together calls using plugs inserted through wires. In this photo a female operator is connecting calls through her wire.
Initial experiments involved hiring boys as switchboard operatorss; however, this proved unsuccessful due to their impatience and rudeness (they frequently swore at subscribers) as well as their tendency for engaging in disruptive pranks such as disconnecting callers or redirecting calls inappropriately. They were also required to listen in on private conversations which many found distressful.
Women soon joined men as switchboard operatorss, often becoming preferred candidates because of their more courteous and competent behavior, plus their ability to manage multiple calls simultaneously without becoming confused. By the early 1900s, they had all but replaced men in this crucial position.
Telephones
Visit our Telephone Historical Centre and you can see the actual equipment used by telecommunications workers of all kinds to erect poles, bury cables, design technology solutions and install telephones into homes and offices across America.
Museum visitors will have a rare opportunity to view one of Alexander Graham Bell’s original “box telephones”, designed for his 1876 demonstration between Boston and Salem. It stands out as unique due to not having wooden covers and having iron diaphragms instead of permanent magnets in its design.
Other phones in this collection range from early wooden wall phones, rotary dial and novelty phones, pay phones and an early Kellogg Universal switchboard that illustrates manual line switching before automatic phone networks were introduced.
Telephone Accessories
We have an impressive assortment of phone accessories in our collection – some are showcased as exhibits while others are for sale.
As a reminder, here is an old sign from outside a phone company office showing the three glass jug batteries used to power these phones – thus earning them their nickname of “three jug” phones.
Our archives consist of vintage directories, technical manuals that detail technological advancement, books relating to its impact and artifactual materials such as scrapbooks and employee awards.
Alexander Graham Bell may be best known as the inventor of the telephone, but Antonio Meucci played an early role in its development. Discover his story and learn about early telephone exchanges at our museum! Our interactive display allows children and adults alike to discover this amazing technology we rely on today in our daily lives – including talking on an analog switchboard! Plus we even offer visitors a working switchboard they can experience using for themselves!
