From Alexander Graham Bell’s solid wood wall-mounted operator directed phones to today’s pocket cell phones, this museum represents a living history of communications technology. Through educational programs like Traveling Trunks, these artifacts come directly into classrooms.
This museum housed in an historic home traces communication technology from Alexander Graham Bell’s attic workshop to mobile phones we carry around today, while also promoting telecom engineering and electrical theory.
Education
Our goal is to display Edmonton and North America’s largest collection of antique telephone artifacts through hands-on exhibits such as working switching equipment. As a non-profit organization, our funds come from membership fees, research donations and grants.
Our museum presents the history and evolution of telecommunication technology from Alexander Graham Bell’s wooden wall-mounted operator phones to cell phones in pockets today. Both guided and self-guided tours help visitors gain an appreciation of this rich legacy of innovation that has profoundly impacted our lives since early childhood.
Many of our volunteers are former telephone operatorss and workers dedicated to preserving history for future generations. Through sharing memorabilia from their garages and sheds, they have helped build our incredible collections. In order to maximize your visit experience and connect the past and present more seamlessly, we have also developed an engaging app designed to bring museum experience alive – and visitors from Henniker as well as beyond have appreciated its value as an instrument of their exploration.
Community Outreach
The Telephone Historical Centre serves as a research and documentation center for materials related to telecommunications history. Its collections showcase how far communications technology has progressed from Alexander Graham Bell’s wooden wall-mounted operator-directed phones through today’s multifunctional cell phones.
This museum is the largest of its kind in North America and provides visitors with an engaging hands-on experience through one of the world’s largest collections of antique telephone artifacts. Experience history as you touch and try rotary dial telephones from yesteryear; play with telegraph keys that comprised Bell’s initial telecom system; and view tools of linemen’s trade such as copper cabling, manhole covers and telephone insulators.
This museum stands out for its commitment to sustainability. Solar panels help reduce its carbon footprint, with plans for electric vehicle charging stations soon after. Furthermore, its Traveling Trunks Program brings telecommunications history directly to schools and community groups – inspiring curiosity about communication technologies among students of all ages.
Traveling Trunks Program
Established by retired telecom professionals, this museum in Edmonton Alberta provides visitors with an insightful look into communication technology history. Visitors will learn all about innovation, culture and history from Alexander Graham Bell’s solid wood wall-mounted phones that required operator direction up until today’s sleek mobile phones – while experiencing innovation, culture and history themselves!
Traveling Trunks bring the Museum’s collection directly into schools and community organizations, featuring artifacts, books and hands-on activities chosen from our selection. Each trunk provides educators with tools for teaching specific chapters of American History that align with state social studies requirements.
Trunks feature high quality reproduction clothing and shoes worn by slaves; objects used by them; documents they used during slavery; as well as critical thinking questions to help students comprehend how these materials contributed to its abolition. This program is available free of charge to schools and community groups – trunks must be shipped directly to valid school addresses – PTAs or homeschool co-ops are not eligible; each trunk can be borrowed for one week at no cost.
Covid-19
Telephone Historical Centre operates as a collection, research, organization and documentation center for documents related to communications history. Its vast collections illustrate the evolution of communications from Alexander Graham Bell’s solid wood wall-mounted phones to multifunctional cell phones we carry today. Museum volunteers seek out former telecom pioneers and ask them to donate memorabilia from their garages and sheds, creating an archive that celebrates telecommunications development and innovation. Furthermore, the museum encourages sustainability with rooftop solar panels as well as encouraging visitors to travel light so that visitors don’t damage any artifacts stored there.
