Peninsula Art Scene

Give Me a Ring: A Telephone Retrospective. A new exhibition at the SFO Museum features an array of classic telephones from the late 1800s to the 1990s, including streamlined Art Deco telephones, pay phones, Picturephones of the 1960s, and a 1958 touch-tone telephone prototype. On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell obtained the first patent for an “apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically,” thereby securing the legal rights to the telephone’s development. Several days after receiving the patent, Bell and his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, made the first successfully transmitted message, using a crude liquid transmitter in which Watson heard Bell exclaim, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” Early telephones had no dials. Making a call required an operator at a switchboard to connect callers. Telephone technology grew at a rapid pace and transcontinental telephone service was officially launched on Jan. 25, 1915. By the 1930s, rotary dialing, which enabled users to make calls without the aid of an operator, prevailed. In the era of cellphones, it is difficult to imagine how revolutionary telephone technology was for its time and how dramatically it has developed. Today, calling the operator, receiving a yearly telephone directory, and memorizing all your friends’ and family’s numbers is nostalgic for many. Give Me a Ring: A Telephone Retrospective is located post-security in Terminal 2 of the San Francisco International Airport. This exhibition is accessible until Aug. 16, 2026 to ticketed passengers, and through prior arrangement by emailing curator@flysfo.com. This exhibition was made possible through a generous loan from the JKL Museum of Telephony; special thanks to JKL curator Remco Enthoven. Visit sfomuseum.org for more information.