Volta Laboratory Experimental Sound Recording, Green Wax on Brass Disc
date: label: date made
content: 1883-1885
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., about 1884. The wax, poured into a brass holder, has been dyed a bright green.
label: Description
content: Sound was recovered from this recording in 2011.
label: Description
content: Content summary: Hamlet’s soliloquy
label: Description
content: Content transcript (17 seconds):
label: Description
content: “To be, or not to be: that is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? To die, to sleep…”
label: Description
content: Download link, Interplanetary File System (IPFS) content identifier (CID): <a href="https://w3s.link/ipfs/bafybeifvq4ph2kyzaggtb7ez57xjqxodvo4gbnwgr3dn5rpptl4zrtprji">https://w3s.link/ipfs/bafybeifvq4ph2kyzaggtb7ez57xjqxodvo4gbnwgr3dn5rpptl4zrtprji</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: Communications
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content: Computers & Business Machines
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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.287920
label: catalog number
content: 287920
label: accession number
content: 58498
objectType: label: Object Name
content: sound recording
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wax; brass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: disc (overall shape)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1/4 in x 10 7/8 in; .635 cm x 27.6225 cm