Vigo County Historical Society

Recordings replace the sounds of silence

"You’ve come a long way, Baby!"

There’s no better expression to describe the tremendous advances that have been made through the years in the process of reproducing and recording sound. From the first reproduction of the human voice, done with a device invested by Thomas Edison in 1877, to the sophisticated stereo and high-fidelity equipment of today, we really have "come a long way."

One of these early recording devices is in the Vigo Room of the museum. It is called a graphophone, and can be found displayed on the piano on which Paul Dresser often played.

Two groups were instrumental in bringing about the development of the graphophone. One group included Chichester Bell, Sumner Taint and Alexander Graham Bell, who conceived the idea of a wax-coated cylinder on which sound could be directly engraved.

Thomas Edison went further with this idea and came up with a solid-wax cylinder which was longer lasting. "Mary had a little lamb" was the entire content of the first graphophone record made in 1877.

In 1888, the patent for Edition’s cylinder was sold to Jesse Lippincott, and the American Graphophone Co. was formed. At this time, graphophones were used as dictophone machines and were sold or leased to businesses.

In the early 1890s, the Columbia Phonograph Co. acquired the American Graphophone Co. The augment income, this company began using talking machines to play recordings for amusement. Machines till were not being sold to the public, but recordings were being played on coin-operated machines, set up in saloons and arcades. Eventually, amusement recordings began to be made drawing upon local talent.

The Columbia Phonograph Co., located in Washington, D.C., was extremely lucky in this regard. It had recording access to the U.S. Marine Band which, with its already famous leader, John Philip Sousa, produced enormously popular recordings.

The company then began offering graphophones to the public. This was the beginning of the end of all attempts at confining the talking machine to the role of an elite business dictophone. Within a year, all companies were selling talking machines to anyone who wanted them, and the foundation of the present-day commercial record business was established.

We know that the graphophone at the museum is a very early one because it has a weight, rather than spring tension, holding the stylus in the groove. A series of patent dates ranging from 1886 to 1897 are listed on it.

It is a hand-turned machine, made of oak, with a mechanism that still works. The words "Columbia Phonograph Co." are written on a scroll of gold on the front. The graphophone belonged to Elizabeth Conrad and was given to the museum by Avice McKibben McCrea.