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Today I had the great fortune of finding William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" presidential candidate speech in a lot of Brown Wax cylinders I picked up. The recording has no spoken introduction and instead features applause followed by the speech with more applause in between pauses. After speaking with a friend of mine who has brown wax reference books I learned that this was apparently a staged Edison recording done around 1899.

My questions is has anyone ever encountered another copy of this unusual cylinder?

Audio will be posted in the next couple of days.

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I had one when I first started collecting in the late 70's. It fell and broke around 1980.
Dave D

I can't wait to hear this one!

Tony K.

long_island_phono wrote:Today I had the great fortune of finding William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" presidential candidate speech in a lot of Brown Wax cylinders I picked up. The recording has no spoken introduction and instead features applause followed by the speech with more applause in between pauses. After speaking with a friend of mine who has brown wax reference books I learned that this was apparently a staged Edison recording done around 1899.

The Columbia Phonograph Co. included this speech (also staged) in its August 1896 catalog of records. I expect many smaller companies offered versions as well. If you can post a photo of your cylinder showing part of the interior, it might be possible to at least identify the type of blank used.

George P.

I have it on a early Universal 7" record. The record is completely blank. Not even with "Universal" on it. All it say's is..."Bryan's Speech". Only after playing it did I realize it was the "Cross Of Gold" speech. The record is very thin and slightly flexible. Not like a regular Berliner or Universal.

Your "Cross of Gold, Crown of Thorns" Columbia cylinder is likely no. 11038 and is I believe it is Len Spencer re-creating the famous speech. I too have a copy. The Cross of Gold speech given by Bryan was not recorded at the Democratic National Convention but several performers did perform re-creations for several record companies.

WJB did re-create portions of his speech several years later at the Gennette Recording Studios. I don't have access to my catalog at the moment but I can reference the Gennette matrix number of Bryans version.

11038 is the correct number as listed in my copy of Kastlemusick's Volume Two "Two Minute Browb Wax and XP Cylinder Records of the Columbia Phonograph Company" by Kenneth M. Lorenz.

Rich Gordon

rodpickett wrote:Your "Cross of Gold, Crown of Thorns" Columbia cylinder is likely no. 11038 and is I believe it is Len Spencer re-creating the famous speech. I too have a copy. The Cross of Gold speech given by Bryan was not recorded at the Democratic National Convention but several performers did perform re-creations for several record companies.

WJB did re-create portions of his speech several years later at the Gennette Recording Studios. I don't have access to my catalog at the moment but I can reference the Gennette matrix number of Bryans version.

Actually, I believe it was Len's younger brother Harry who did most if not all the Bryan re-creations. Harry died very young.

I had a chance to record the William Jennings Bryan cylinder today and my friend help put a video together so I could post it. The machine we used was a Graphophone Type A. It was apparent while playing the recording that the reproducer could use a rebuild as faint buzzing was detectable. It also should be noted that the motor on that particular Type A was fairly noisy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... DcnOyhto8Q

Attached are a few photos of the cylinder. It appears to be a Columbia single-spiral blank.

Does anybody recognize the recording? Is this Harry Spencer? The speed was not calibrated so the pitch might be off.


Any additional information regarding this unique piece of our history would be greatly appreciated.

This morning I thought of another question to ask about this cylinder.

Can anybody confirm if any commerical variation of this recording lacks an introduction? The listing in the Edison Brown wax reference guide does not list a speaker. The few other political cylinders listed with the Bryan one are also speaker-less.