What's an Ear Trumpet?

It may seem a bit off topic for Philly Bricks, but I love history, and the weirder the better. Recently YouTube user George Clarke of Belfast found an unusual clip from DVD extras on Charlie Chaplin's 1928 silent film The Circus. A Time Traveler!

This logical conclusion was drawn based on the grainy footage's depiction of an elderly woman on what appears to be a cell phone.

Let's ignore the fact that the simplest explanation is almost always the correct one. Let's not ask why George Clarke was studying the extras in the deleted footage of an 82 year old silent film. And let's forget that this "time traveler" appears to be about as old as the film itself.

I only have one question: if you had the ability to travel back in time and experience a world centuries from your own, do you really think you'd be gabbing on a 2001 Motorola flip-phone?

Come on people.

A 1925 Audiphone

She is using a 1920's Ear Trumpet or an "Audiphone", both popular early hearing aids.

What appears to be a conversation she is having with this alleged phone is most likely either singing corresponding with the circus, or she's a passerby yelling at a set crew that just screamed in her hearing aid.