Experimental Graphophone and Recording

Description:

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.’”

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.

Sound was recovered from this recording in 2013.

Speaker: Alexander Melville Bell

Content (20 seconds): “[trilled r sounds] There are more things in heaven and

Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy [trilled r sound].

I am a graphophone, and my mother was a phonograph.”

References:

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.

Patrick Feaster, “A Discography of Volta Laboratory Recordings at the National Museum of American History”