Edmonton’s Telephone Historical Centre serves as an international repository of global telecommunication history, offering acquisition, research, documentation and exhibition of global telecom history. Explore their collection to witness how telecommunication technology has advanced from solid wood wall-mounted phones with operator direction through to today’s sleek cell phones.
This section details a telephone outreach project designed to engage older adults during the Covid-19 pandemic and identify resources for specific challenges they faced. It shares key results and lessons learned, with hopes that project replication is possible.
Educational Workshops
The Museum’s educational workshops foster enthusiasm for engineering by drawing upon America’s rich telephone history to compare modern telecommunications with vintage tech. These programs cultivate the inherent curiosity that led to the invention of telephone and that continues to propel inventors and innovators.
Visitors experience the history of communication as they experiment with classic rotary phones and an intricate panel switchboard, witnessing technology advance from Alexander Graham Bell’s wooden wall-mounted devices to sleek mobile phones. Furthermore, guests experience what life was like for early phone switchboard operators by operating reconstructed private automatic branch exchange exhibits.
Students can explore the inner workings of old analog telephones to gain an understanding of the intricate components which convert voice into electrical current and back again – this shows the iterative design process which produced our world of interdependency.
Traveling Trunks
Traveling Trunks bring part of the Museum’s collection directly into classrooms. Each trunk contains artifacts, hands-on activities, primary source learning materials and suggested lesson plans from its contents.
The Caddo Traveling Trunk gives students an in-depth overview of Caddo Indian life in East Texas – their religion, food, housing, language and artistry as well as briefly covering mission system established by Spain during their colonization efforts.
The Civil War Trunk offers students a comprehensive view of American Civil War. This trunk provides information about slavery, soldier experiences, new technology introduced during and after the conflict as well as social reforms after it. Furthermore, this trunk features reproduction period clothing, soldiers haversacks with hygiene items and utensils as well as books featuring period photographs and illustrations.
Exhibits
Museum collections commemorating Alexander Graham Bell’s revolutionary phone are testament to its fascinating history, while paying homage to generations of men and women who built poles, laid wires underground, designed and managed the technology that connects us all.
Edmonton’s Telephone Historical Centre showcases an expansive collection of antique telephones and related equipment from different time periods. Operated by Telecom Pioneers – a volunteer organization made up of current and retired Bell System employees – this museum provides an intriguing glimpse at the development of telecommunications over time. Displays include wooden wall phones, classic rotary phones and candlestick phones; manual cord boards featuring step-by-step private automatic branch exchanges to illustrate step switch principles; as well as antique line insulators and panels from this fascinating era of history.
The museum’s telecommunications collection also includes replicas of Alexander Graham Bell’s Gallows Frame Phone, Thomas A. Watson’s Thumper Phone, and the first phone imported into Edmonton by Dominion Telegraph Agent Alexander Taylor. Displays chronicle Edmonton’s telephone industry through directories and photographs while also showing early telephone technologies.
Events
The Museum is an opportunity for discovery, engagement, and education surrounding the telephone. Its collection shows how its invention spawned other innovations and businesses, shaping lives across society and telling its own story as it did so. Furthermore, it depicts those tasked with maintaining and expanding a national telephone wire network across their respective states.
Telecom museums often host educational workshops aligning with school curriculum requirements. They may also organize off-site community educational events for adults. Some even host Traveling Trunk programs to bring artifacts directly into communities that cannot visit the museum itself.
Edmonton’s Telephone Historical Centre provided an informative look back into Alberta telecommunications history, dedicated to collecting, researching, organizing, documenting, exhibiting and storing materials related to phone telephony. First opened on December 3, 1987 in Old Strathcona’s historic telephone building before moving to Prince of Wales Armouries Heritage Centre in 2004. Exhibits at both locations included Alexander Graham Bell’s original gallows frame and candlestick phones as well as wooden wall phones, working manual switchboards including step-by-step private automatic branch exchanges which illustrated stepper principles as well as antique phones with colorful insulatorss attached.
