Period Telephones – Grey Roots Museum and Archives

Grey Roots Museum and Archives in Owen Sound, Canada celebrates the history of Grey County, Ontario. In an effort to bring this traditional museum into the 21st century, Toronto exhibition design firm, Blue Rhino Design, created the Voices of Grey Gallery. This modern exhibition features people whose lives reflect Grey County’s diverse history. Their stories are told through their own voices via diary entries, quotes, oral accounts, social media posts, audio and video recordings.

To inject a historical feel in what is otherwise a fairly contemporary space, our period telephones were used to provide selectable audio content to visitors. The programmable control boxes for these phones required special modification in order to work with Canadian telecom protocols.

The phones are used to allow visitors to ‘dial an object’ on display via the rotary input and discover more about it as well as listen to the ‘voices’ of Grey County residents who share a number of oral histories – offering a unique way to delve into the past and present.