As digital communication has taken over our lives, it is easy to forget about how far back telephone technology had come. At the Telephone Historical Centre’s collection, this fascinating history of telephone is revealed.
Roger Kaufman, retired President of Gridley Telephone Company, amassed artifacts and collectibles related to his business in hopes of opening a museum dedicated to them.
Manual System Telephones
Before the days of rotary dial service and automated exchanges, telephones were connected through manual system exchanges. These manually operated systems connected local calls by using patch cords and magneto crank phones – and operators got to know their customers personally. Independent telephone companies utilized manual exchanges as they did not justify automated equipment for serving rural and small town areas; manual exchanges were also employed on ships prior to marine radio being introduced as an option.
These wood three box wall phones were an early model with wooden handles that moved between mouth and ear during conversation, popular up until the turn of the 20th century. Stored in temperature-controlled vaults for easy accessing advanced features that had to be memorized previously, these artifacts offer intuitive softkey access rather than memorizing advanced features needed by prior models.
Automatic System Telephones
An automated telephone system enables callers to interact with each other without human interference, saving both time and money while optimizing agent availability, providing exceptional service for customers.
Early automated systems like this one relied on electromechanical switches to route speech between callers. Compared with operator-controlled switchboards of the late 19th century, these systems proved more reliable but more expensive to operate and frequently required upgrades and adjustments.
Automatic dial exchanges took the responsibility for connecting calls away from subscribers and put it directly in their own hands, by reading the numbers pressed onto phone keys to determine which circuit was available and connecting. This system allowed scalable networks that could encompass cities or even countries – an invaluable invention that revolutionized life – however during its early days privacy concerns loomed large as most homes weren’t wired and public phones allowed anyone who heard your conversations to access your private conversations without fearing eavesdroppers hearing your personal conversations on public phones – something phones today cannot do.
Telephone Kiosks
The iconic red telephone box, or kiosk as it is more commonly known, has long been an icon of Britain. Since 1920 when the Post Office released their standard design design of telephone boxes across Britain and beyond Empire. Since that time they can be found everywhere from local streetsides to national landmarks.
As soon as BT announced plans to sell off its payphones there was widespread outrage from across the nation and public campaigns successfully saved iconic red kiosks from being scrapped altogether. While attempts were made at replacing them with designs that looked similar to garish 1980s garden sheds; their classic counterparts remain.
Kiosks provide an ideal venue for advertising as they remain highly visible to both pedestrian and vehicular traffic for extended periods. MediaLease OOH offers several forms of kiosk advertising including City Panels that appear on the back side (street-side) of public telephone structures, and Super City Panels with backlit LED displays displaying changing messages.
Telephone Directories
Antique telephones and telecommunication technology tell a unique tale of innovation, culture and society through interactive exhibits that invite visitors to engage with these artifacts.
Telephone directories are books containing lists of residential and business telephone numbers and street addresses (in the White pages), or subject listings for businesses (Yellow pages). Alphabetically-arranged directories can also be classified by subject area – at our library we offer several different kinds of directories from multiple time periods!
An advanced telephone dialler has been created that enables fast retrieval and dialling of numbers stored in telephone directories. Its memory is organized into pages with options to lock specific ones; access codes assigned to their owners control these pages’ access rights and enable owners to lock certain pages as desired. When an incoming call comes through it is checked against numbers stored on that page with any extra details being stored into memory and displayed via alphanumeric displays.
