Skip to Content
My Accounts
University of Connecticut University Libraries
About the Libraries

SNET Deposits Historic Corporate Records in Dodd Research Center

The University of Connecticut and Southern New England Telecommunications, Inc. (SNET), Connecticut's largest telecommunications company, have entered into a formal, continuing partnership to create a special collection of SNET historical documents and photographs at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. With 2.5 million documents and weighing 17 tons, the collection will eventually constitute the second largest private collection in the Dodd Center.

SNET Chairman and CEO Daniel Miglio (left)
and UConn President Philip E. Austin with
items from the new SNET Historic Collection
Photo: Associated Press
The idea to share SNET's history with the people of Connecticut surfaced in 1995 following the dedication of the Dodd Research Center. Daniel Miglio, SNET chairman and CEO, said "While our focus is always on the future, it seemed like a good time to pause and take a look back to appreciate all that this company has accomplished, including a host of industry 'firsts'." UConn president Philip Austin expressed his pleasure by saying, "The SNET collection.will be of great value to the scholarly community and the people of Connecticut; [the agreement].underlines the University's continuing effort to become an active partner on many fronts with Connecticut's business community."

The partnership was announced on January 28, 1998, the 120th anniversary of the opening in New Haven of the world's first commercial telephone exchange, paving the way for today's sophisticated telephone network and marking the beginnings of SNET. Items currently in the collection span the period from the late 1870's to the present and include historical photographs; town "telephone" histories; public relations materials; minutes, including the first meeting of the National Telephone Exchange Association Convention in Niagara Falls in 1880; financial records, including early cash books; annual reports; audio visual materials; artifacts; and correspondence, including notes from and about Mark Twain and his sometimes antagonistic experiences with the telephone.

Dodd Center director Thomas Wilsted foresees a wide variety of uses for the SNET collection, including research on the development of telecommunications and corporate innovation in Connecticut and the United States. It can also provide data for the development of case studies on entrepreneurship, for historical studies of corporate response to major natural disasters, and for sociological studies of the employment of women and minorities. Photographs and documents reflect change and development as telecommunications moved from a single, rare invention to an all encompassing tool for communication.

Significant financial support from SNET will make it possible for Dodd Center staff to organize and catalog the collection. Plans call for the creation of oral histories and for mounting portions of the collection on the Dodd Center Web site, beginning with a SNET publication called The First Century of the Telephone in Connecticut. For more information see: www.lib.uconn.edu/DoddCenter/ASC/SNET/snetmain.htm.

Back to the Table of Contents

This page is maintained by Suzanne Zack

369 Fairfield Way
Storrs, CT 06269
(860) 486-2518
Last Updated: Wednesday, 10-Apr-2013 13:50:13 EDT