The Telephone Historical Centre is one of America’s premier facilities of its kind. It boasts an impressive collection of working Panel and Crossbar electromechanical central office switch equipment; antique phones; outside plant displays (poles, wire and splicing tools); as well as an expansive catalogued reference library.
Archive collections hold original volumes dating back to 1877 – just a year after Alexander Graham Bell first patented his revolutionary telephone device – including The Speaking Telephone which contains detailed diagrams.
Hello Montreal!
Montreal, Canada’s jazz capital and successor to Emile Berliner’s innovations in phonography, has long been known for its vibrant rhythms of jazz music. From its glory days during Prohibition – when Sin-City was known to attract musicians – to today’s vibrant clubs that host great live jazz performances seven nights a week – Montreal has long been home to great musical offerings that can be heard here.
Hello Montreal!, an exhibition put together by Pointe-a-Calliere and Bell, provides an engaging journey through the evolution of telephony through its many forms. Additionally, this display explores some of the latest technologies on the horizon. Enjoy!
The Virtual Museum of Telecommunications
No matter your passion for telephone networks and inventions that came before them, this virtual museum provides a fascinating look into communications history. Hosted by Telecommunications History Group (THG), an independent non-profit established by retired ED TEL employees concerned that much of Canada’s telecom history was being lost as buildings were torn down or departments closed down, the THG is an unprecedented collection that brings you all this fascinating content in one convenient place.
Today, The Heritage Group includes two physical museums (Connections Museum Denver and Seattle) as well as an impressive archive. Both these resources are maintained and expanded through an innovative model of collaboration among heritage institutions; this model expands upon traditional notions of museum practice by inviting multiple parties to contribute towards its creation and curation, thus reflecting changing natures of museum practice in digital age.
The Jefferson Barracks Telephone Museum
The Jefferson Barracks Telephone Museum offers a unique collection of telephone-related artifacts. Housed in a restored 1896 building listed on the National Register of Historic Places and situated within Jefferson Barracks Park 15 minutes south of St Louis, it provides self-guided tours as well as interactive how-things-work displays designed to spark interest in engineering and history. Highlights include working central office step switches dating from 1920’s through 1960s operator switches military telephones from WWI through Gulf War service as well as novelty phones from all time periods of service history!
This year’s museum finally opened after 13 years of planning by retired phone workers from Southwestern Bell and AT&T who work under an umbrella organization known as Telecom Pioneers. Their volunteers donated their time and collected many artifacts such as crank phones running off giant dry-cell batteries or wearable leg telegraphs so they could send Morse code while hanging onto telephone poles.
The Bell Museum
On a sprawling plot of land overlooking Baddeck Bay and the Bras d’Or Lakes, visitors will discover an exquisite collection of artifacts related to Bell’s life, including: 1) His original Silver Dart hydrofoil craft which broke the world marine speed record in Baddeck Bay 1909; his walking stick and notebook; his rotary dial telephone; as well as a full scale replica of both his famous kite plane and HD-4 hydrofoil craft (both shown here).
The Museum pays its respects to generations of linemen and engineers who brought telephone service into rural and urban America, including display cases with old switchboards and glass insulators from independent telephone companies.
An extensive portion of the Archive comprises records that aren’t bound into books, such as individual printed documents (government proclamations and trade broadsides) as well as company newsletters and journals. Sheldon Hochheiser, Archivist at The Telephone Historical Centre Archives provides a brief tour through these irreplaceable collections.
