Experience one of North America’s premier telecommunications museums! Showcasing everything from Alexander Graham Bell’s Gallows Frame Telephone and Thomas Watson’s Thumper Phone to wooden candlestick wall telephones and novelty phones – this fascinating collection of antique telephone equipment allows guests to experience history through an engaging interactive experience.
Alexander Graham Bell Collection
This collection explores the history and development of modern telephones, along with associated technologies. Additionally, this exhibition serves as a tribute to Alexander Graham Bell and his dedication towards solving challenges while remaining truly curious in everything that came his way.
One of Bell’s earliest interests was harmonic telegraphy, an activity which would eventually lead him to create the telephone. For this project, funding came from two of his pupils, George Graham and Mabel Hubbard; these students went on to marry two of Bell’s sisters and provide financial support throughout his inventing projects.
This collection encompasses a diverse array of materials, such as scientific notebooks and journals; correspondence with family, colleagues and government officials; miscellaneous writings and copies of letters; typed transcripts of many handwritten letters created to make reading them easier have also been retained; they can sometimes be found along with their original counterparts.
Early Telephones
Before the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, people used acoustic telegraph systems for short distance communication. By simultaneously transmitting multiple messages over one wire, Bell’s invention provided an answer for long distance communications problems.
Prior to 1890s, most telephones were large, expensive, and cumbersome devices made up of three parts – transmitter (known as candlestick), receiver, and base unit. Users typically leased instruments in pairs from telegraph contractors that would create lines using railroad right-of-ways as conduits for cables connecting each pair together.
From 1880-1818, phones were an integral feature in the U.S. Capitol building under House Doorkeeper Walter Brownlow and operated by 15 female switchboard operators who took approximately 30,000 calls daily from reporters eager for breaking news from Congress.
Research Archive
The museum housed one of the largest collections of antique telephones in North America. Ranging from Alexander Graham Bell’s Gallows Frame and Thomas Watson’s Thumper Phone to rotary phones, candlestick wall telephones and working central office switchboards with operator panel and crossbar electromechanical switching, visitors could explore communication history through this spectacular collection.
Research archive of CDRC included microfilm copies of early directories as well as at-risk scrapbooks and binders, highlighted by an impressive paper presented by Nikki Tanu of CDRC’s collaborative PhD student Nikki Tanu and Senior Research Fellow Maurizio Gibin at 2021 GISRUK online conference that georeferenced historical telephone directories to demonstrate innovation diffusion over 19th and 20th century Alberta and beyond.
Notable was also the vast archive of photojournalist Stan Wayman, who contributed to Newsweek, People, and Life magazines. This archive features color slides, negatives, and photographic prints depicting presidential candidates from Carter to Clinton at press conferences, meetings with foreign leaders, attending domestic political conventions as well as attending domestic political conventions worldwide.
Exhibits
Effective telephone museums use historical research to bring invention and societal changes caused by communication technology to life for their visitors. They typically display working examples such as old crank phones, rotary dials and panel switchboards as part of this exploration of human connection’s history. They may also show how answering machines have grown from simple convenience devices into tools capable of managing missed calls with sophisticated features, showing how industrial design, materials science and cultural preferences played key roles in its growth.
Established in 1987, Edmonton-based Telephone Historical Centre is one of the largest museums of its kind in North America. Housing an expansive collection of antique telecommunications equipment from Alexander Graham Bell’s gallows frame phone to Thomas Watson’s Thumper phone through to today’s iPhone, it also houses working central office step switch and operator switchboards as well as outdoor plant displays showcasing poles wires splicing equipment tools and an extensive cataloged reference library.
