At a time when connectivity is available at our fingertips, the Telephone Historical Centre helps us remember and understand how this technology has affected our lives.
The Bell Canada Collection houses records that chronicle its growth since 1880, along with an exhibition featuring 32 phone kiosks that trace this street furniture design’s evolution.
Hands-on exhibits
From old-fashioned cigar box phones to Edmonton’s original manual system phone installed in 1878, the museum houses an astounding collection of wired communications history. Documents, photos, catalogues and equipment date back from when Bell established a plant in Brantford in 1878 until today’s Bell-Northern Research and Development Laboratories; comprehensive files on Trans-Canada Telephone Company affiliates and independent companies as well as telecommunications in foreign countries make up this incredible selection.
The Museum’s interactive exhibits give visitors an understanding of how telecommunication technology has advanced over time, including trying their luck at working switching stations and discovering innovations that led to modern cell phones. Furthermore, its collection includes 32 telephone kiosks – iconic curbside boxes once found dotted across British city streets – some still in service which visitors can explore as an homage to an age gone by.
Artifacts
Some artifacts are available for visitors to touch; others are stored away in drawers and cabinets. Visitors can explore a pair of 19th-century hand tools, duplicates of items placed in Beaver Hall building cornerstone, stamp albums and tokens from telecommunications services as well as pieces from venerable telephone poles – these artifacts make up part of an interactive experience at Beaver Hall Museum.
Lexi Coburn, Revolutionary War and Iron Industry Museum collections intern, spent her summer assisting Collections staff as they photographed historical objects to create digital records that enable researchers and curators to easily locate them. From folding knives to musket ball molds digitization projects were undertaken during her internship.
The Archives of the Telephone Historical Centre contain more than three million paper documents and 25.000 pieces of equipment that cover telephone history from its creation by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 up to today. This includes files on Bell Canada, independent Canadian telephone companies and foreign telecommunications. Correspondence between Bell and his associates; dates, photographs and equipment samples related to early telephony as well as commentary and opinions related to emerging technologies from 1870s until present day are also part of this vast repository of knowledge.
Archive
The Collection encompasses thousands of archival photographs and prints as well as films, tapes and other audiovisual media that offer insight into many facets of telecommunications history.
This collection includes the original volume “How It Works”, published shortly after the invention of the telephone in 1877 and intended to meet public demand for an explanation of this new invention.
This collection also encompasses books, magazines and other publications on telecommunications. Of particular note is an index of seven hundred telephone directories on microfilm; copies of items that were placed in Beaver Hall building cornerstone; records from Hamilton Ontario office where Bell first set up shop; early telephone equipment pictures taken by staff members at that office; photographs; postcards collection used by first staff members as well as copies of newspaper clipping binders used by first staff. There are also an impressive variety of old stamps from around the world related to telecomms stamp collection that date back as far back as 1880!
Virtual museum
Now that cell phones have nearly become ubiquitous, it can be hard to imagine curbside telephone kiosks as being popular – yet this unique collection in Guernsey tells an amazing tale about technological development.
THNOC’s collections are constantly growing as more items are donated to the museum for display, research, education and preservation. Information about our holdings can be found through themed guides, subject bibliographies and databases; forms are also available for those wishing to reproduce Collection items.
Explore Alberta’s phone era through nine interactive galleries available through Google Arts & Culture on both mobile phones and tablets, plus an accompanying lesson plan designed specifically for educators.
