“SNET Telephone Exhibit,”

Abstract

The town of Orange is celebrating its bicentennial in 2022. In the digital age, it is easy to take for granted the availability of information via smart phones, the internet, applications, and social media. The Orange Historical Society (OHS) recently compiled and opened a unique exhibit which reminds viewers that the digital age owes much to the communication technology in the late-nineteenth century through the twentieth century. Located at the OHS's Academy Building in the town's historic district, the exhibit features examples of communication technology ranging from telegraphs and turn of the century candlestick to rotary dial phones and the equipment used by electric linemen.The OHS is active in the community hosting numerous local events including hearth cooking classes and viewings of the historic district and historic homes like the Stone Otis House on Orange Center Road. Like many historical societies in the state, the OHS takes tremendous pride in the preservation of public and local history. The pieces in this collection came from many donors including former linemen who parted with their old toolbelts and climbing equipment to contribute to the exhibit. This exhibit commemorates the legacy of the Southern New England Telephone (SNET) company. SNET was a major telecommunications company founded in 1878 and headquartered in New Haven. In a time before constant connectivity, SNET employed up to 10,000 workers in the state at any given time through the twentieth century and provided telecommunications services to the residents of New Haven County including the town of Orange. New Haven was even home to one of the first telephone exchanges in the 1890s.The exhibit includes nineteen original pieces including telephones used in both the homes of Connecticut residents and in various workplaces in the state. The collection also contains vintage corded phones, nostalgic reminders of the phones on kitchen walls in suburban homes and city apartments alike, in a variety of bright and unique colors. There are no replicas or reproductions in this collection, all the pieces are originals and well-preserved. Some of the older pieces in the collection include three telegraphs, the oldest of which was manufactured by Western Electric Telegraph Key and Sound in 1892 and another that was used in Scobie's Store on Orange Center Road at the turn of the twentieth century. Organized in chronological order by year, the observer walks through nearly a century of telecommunications history, crossing the threshold from candlestick and rotary style telephones to the wall phones manufactured by Western Electric intended for use on the railroads in the state. In addition to Western Electric, the collection includes examples of telephones manufactured for home and office use through the twentieth century by Bell, Leich, and Kellogg. At the center of the exhibit rests a Bell System Desk Set from 1950 used by the Fire Department. The exhibit conveys the memory of SNET as an important business in Connecticut by blending the phones with photographs that tell the stories of SNET employees in the twentieth century.Honoring the legacy of SNET in Connecticut also meant honoring the hardworking employees. Photographs of telephone operators and electric linemen working in New Haven County, like chief operator Clara Cade in 1913 and operator Mary Pucillo in 1920, provide snapshots of a time when connectivity was an emerging labor requiring complex service. The equipment used by the electric linemen including their toolbelts, harnesses, and helmets indicate the tremendously difficult and strenuous work it took to keep Connecticut homes and businesses connected.The exhibit was built by OHS leaders Ginny Reinhard, Michelle Stannard, and Barbara Carbone. OHS opened the exhibit on May 13, 2022, and is a permanent, and growing, exhibit in the OHS's collection. The telephones alone are examples of public history nostalgia and provide the observer with a moment to reflect on how far communications have come. The unique wall phones from Leich, Western Electric, and Kellogg represent early forms of communication for workers in the railroads, emphasizing the connection between telecommunications and industry in the twentieth century. Lovers of public history and the memory of twentieth-century telecommunications alike will be transported to an era of communications history that enabled the digital age we live in today.