Lauste, Single Wire Light Valve
date: label: date made
content: ca. 1909-1913
name: label: inventor
content: Lauste, Eugene Augustin
label: maker
content: Lauste, Eugene Augustin
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: This is a single wire light valve sound recorder designed and built by Eugene Augstin Lauste during his experimentation with sound-on-film technology ca. 1904-1913. The piece of apparatus is a wood box painted black with a brass lens casing on one side and turret on its top. The interior of the box has four coiled wire electromagnets surrounding a tightly held wire and glass oil damper tube. The entire piece is on a brass stand which attached to a mount inside of Lauste's camera and the box has a circular opening opposite its lens to allow light to enter. This model utilized a thin wire which vibrated according to current powering the electromagnet, which were attached to a microphone outside of the camera. The light source behind the recorder projected the wires' motion on to a part of the motion picture film, providing its soundtrack.
label: Description
content: The PHC’s Early Sound Cinema Collection [COLL.PHOTOS.000040] includes the unit’s holdings of apparatus, film and other media related to the history of matching recorded sound to projected motion pictures. The collection includes over 50 pieces of apparatus related to Eugene Augustin Lauste’s experiments with sound-on-film technology. Lauste, a pioneering motion picture engineer, used selenium cells to record playable soundtracks alongside images on film in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Lauste failed to find commercial success with his inventions, and Bell Laboratories bought the rights to Lauste’s work and collections for patent litigation use before donating the materials to the Smithsonian in the 1930s. The collection also includes several pieces of apparatus used to record and project motion pictures with sound before the process became an industry standard, two short lengths of film used to demonstrate early processes and a film of a lecture on the history of sound experiments from 1922.
label: Description
content: This collection is one in a series documenting the PHC’s Early Cinema Collection [COLL.PHOTOS.000018]. The cinema-related objects cover the range of technological innovation and popular appeal that defined the motion picture industry during a period in which it became the premier form of mass communication in American life, roughly 1885-1930. See also finding aids for Early Cinema Equipment [COLL.PHOTOS.000037], Early Color Cinema [COLL.PHOTOS.000039], Early Cinema Film and Ephemera [COLL.PHOTOS.000038], and the Gatewood Dunston Collection [COLL.PHOTOS.000021].
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Motion Pictures
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Photographic History
label: See more items in
content: Photography
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Bell Telephone Laboratories
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PG.4046.13
label: catalog number
content: 4046.13
label: accession number
content: 129430
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Lauste: Single Wire Light Valve
label: Object Name
content: sound recording apparatus
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: handmade (overall production method/technique)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 9 1/2 in x 8 1/2 in x 4 in; 24.13 cm x 21.59 cm x 10.16 cm