Volta Laboratory Experimental Recording
date: label: date made
content: ca 1885
label: date recorded
content: 1885-11-03
name: label: maker
content: Volta Laboratory Associates
notes: label: Description
content: This is an experimental sound recording made in the Volta Laboratory, Washington, D.C., on 11 March 1885. The recording process involved focusing a beam of light, projecting it through a liquid, and causing sound waves to interrupt both the light and the liquid to expose a prepared photographic plate. The recording, which starts at the center and spirals outward, is of variable density, that is the areas of exposure vary in density according to volume and pitch of the sound recorded. Process is described in U.S. Patent 341,213 awarded Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester A. Bell, and Charles Sumner Tainter on 4 May 1886.
label: Description
content: Sound was recovered from this recording in 2011.
label: Description
content: Content summary: “Mary had a little lamb”
label: Description
content: Content transcript (37 seconds):
label: Description
content: “ [?]…Sumner Tainter and H. G. Rogers. This eleventh day of March, eighteen hundred and eighty-five. [trilled r sound] [indistinct phrase] Mary had a little lamb, and its fleece was white as snow [alternatively, black as soot?] . And wherever Mary went…Oh [indistinct word].
label: Description
content: Mary had a little lamb, and its fleece was white as snow [alternatively, black as soot?].
label: Description
content: And wherever Mary went, the little lamb was sure to go. How is this for high? [trill]”
label: Description
content: Download link, Interplanetary File System (IPFS) content identifier (CID): <a href="https://w3s.link/ipfs/bafybeibrdb5tuqk4lj5yuqa7cvd57uxf3xtgujfd2g5j4ugmsscqx7pgja">https://w3s.link/ipfs/bafybeibrdb5tuqk4lj5yuqa7cvd57uxf3xtgujfd2g5j4ugmsscqx7pgja</a>
label: Description
content: References:
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: 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://www.aes-media.org/historical/html/recording.technology.history/graphophone.html">Steven E. Schoenherr, “Charles Sumner Tainter and the Graphophone”</a>
label: Description
content: Wile, Raymond R. "The Development of Sound Recording at the Volta Laboratory," Association for Recorded Sound Collections Journal 21, No. 2, 1990, pp. 208-225.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: District of Columbia, Washington
topic: label: Subject
content: Technology
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanisms
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content: Music & Musical Instruments
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content: Communications
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content: Hear My Voice
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Alexander Graham Bell
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: ME.287654.11
label: catalog number
content: 287654.11
label: accession number
content: 57694
objectType: label: Object Name
content: experimental disc sound recording, glass
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: glass, coated with photographic emulsion (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: disc (overall shape)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1/8 in x 13 5/8 in; .3175 cm x 34.6075 cm
label: Measurements
content: center hole: 1/8 in x 1/4 in; .3175 cm x .635 cm