Experimental Graphophone and Recording
date: label: date made
content: 1881-09
notes: label: Description
content: This is an experimental machine for recording sound with a vertically cut wax record on its cylinder. It was made as a demonstration piece at the Volta Laboratory, Washington, DC, in September 1881. The machine is a modified Edison phonograph. The grooves of the machine’s cylinder have been widened and coated with wax. A hand-written card attached to the machine with sealing wax reads: “The following words and sounds are recorded upon the cylinder of this Graphophone: ‘T-r-r—T-r-r—There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamed of in our philosophy—T-r-r—I am a Graphophone and my mother was a Phonograph.’”
label: Description
content: This machine and recording were part of the proof of invention that the Volta Associates—Alexander Graham Bell, his cousin Chichester Bell, and Charles Sumner Tainter—deposited in a sealed tin box at the Smithsonian on October 30, 1881, in case of a patent fight. The box was opened in the presence of Bell relatives in 1937.
label: Description
content: Sound was recovered from this recording in 2013.
label: Description
content: Speaker: Alexander Melville Bell
label: Description
content: Content (20 seconds): “[trilled r sounds] There are more things in heaven and
label: Description
content: Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy [trilled r sound].
label: Description
content: I am a graphophone, and my mother was a phonograph.”
label: Description
content: Download link, Interplanetary File System (IPFS) content identifier (CID): <a href=">https://w3s.link/ipfs/bafybeicf4ymaboepjhwc2b2f3ufd33ak6vxsjz7iefylr6z6ncl6eflpeq">https://w3s.link/ipfs/bafybeicf4ymaboepjhwc2b2f3ufd33ak6vxsjz7iefylr6z6ncl6eflpeq</a>
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Leslie J. Newville, “Development of the Phonograph at Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Laboratory,” in Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology, United States National Museum Bulletin 218, Paper 5 (1959): 69-79.
label: Description
content: <a href="https://phonozoic.net/volta-discography.pdf">Patrick Feaster, “A Discography of Volta Laboratory Recordings at the National Museum of American History”</a>
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanisms
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content: Communications
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content: Computers & Business Machines
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content: Hear My Voice
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: ME.312123
label: catalog number
content: 312123
label: accession number
content: 162298
objectType: label: Object Name
content: experimental sound recording
label: Object Name
content: experimental graphophone
label: Object Name
content: experimental sound recording and player
label: Object Name
content: experimental sound recording and instrument
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 7 in x 10 1/4 in x 14 3/4 in; 17.78 cm x 26.035 cm x 37.465 cm