The history of PTT and its archive
The Federal Constitution of 1848 established the centralisation of the postal system in Switzerland as a task of the Confederation. Telegraphy (1851) and telephony (1880) were also placed under the state monopoly by law. Until the mid-1920s, postal and telegraph services were run separately. It was not until 1927 that the two administrative units merged. PTT also transmitted radio programmes (1923) and television programmes (1953) for the Swiss Radio and Television Company (SRG). The increasing importance of telephony was reflected in new administrative structures: the “Schweizerische Post-, Telegraphen- und Telephonverwaltung” was established in 1936, while the designation “Schweizerische Post-, Telephon- und Telegraphen-Betriebe” was introduced in 1960. The latter existed until the services were privatised.
Following privatisation, PTT was split into Swiss Post and Swisscom in late 1997. This also had an impact on the corporate archive, which was founded in 1893. Until privatisation, the archive was directly affiliated with the Directorate-General of PTT and was located at its headquarters in Bern. When PTT was divided into Swiss Post and Swisscom, the Swiss Foundation for the History of Post and Telecommunications was established. In 1997, the PTT Museum was turned into the Museum of Communication and today also serves as the Foundation office. In 1998, Swiss Post and Swisscom commissioned the Foundation to manage the PTT Archive on their behalf. As an autonomous institution, the PTT Archive and its collections are subject to the Federal Act on Archiving.
