Article ID: CBB001201826

Canned Literature: The Book after Edison (2013)

unapi

The history of recorded sound begins in verse. Thomas Edison announced his plans to mechanically reproduce the human voice in a letter to Scientific American published on November 17, 1877.1 Three weeks later, Edison's associates assembled a simple device on which Edison recorded Mary Had a Little Lamb. Whatever disagreements exist among historians as to the exact events of that day, there is no disputing that the words of this nursery rhyme were among the first spoken by the phonograph.2 Their fame makes it all the more surprising that histories of the phonograph have had so little to say about the prominence of the spoken word at its initial demonstrations in America and Europe.3 [intro]

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Authors & Contributors
Stephenson, Ethan Taylor
Sayers, Jentery
Peters, J.
Kelleher, Kevin Daniel
Whitney, Tyler
Sterne, Jonathan
Concepts
Sound reproduction
Sound
Technology and culture
Engineering, audio
Technology and music
Technology and literature
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
20th century, early
21st century
Early modern
18th century
Places
United States
Germany
Weimar Republic (1919-1933)
New Zealand
Europe
Great Britain
Institutions
Menlo Park Laboratory
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