The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Anyone watch the Lizzie Borden movie on television this week? The murders she committed were in 1892. I noticed a phonograph in the background in several scenes. It appeared to be an Edison Standard; however, the model displayed in the movie was not introduced until at least 1896 or later.

Did she go "looking for the band" ?

Lol, Frank!

There actually is a connection between the phonograph world and Lizzie Borden! There was a gentleman named Underhill who holds several patents for a multiple-cylinder phonograph, circa 1904. His father, George Underhill, was the founder of the Underhill Edge Tool Company of Nashua, New Hampshire and Boston, Massachusetts, manufacturer of knives, axes hatchets, etc. Entered into evidence at Lizzie's trial was the Underhill implement that was the murder weapon.

Chilesave wrote: The murders she committed were in 1892. .

She was actually found "not guilty".

Should have been a class M,T, or W phonograph. Or a treadle B&T Graphophone.
The Phonograph in Dracula is partially right, a suitcase home except it has the wrong horn and carriage, he is using a late model recorder, instead of the early style one.

I hesitate to step in with this, but it's actually fairly unlikely that the Borden home would have had a phonograph in 1892. Andrew Borden had a lot of money, but he was something of a notorious skinflint. The house on Second Street in Fall River was fifty or sixty years old and not very up-to-date for the family of means at the time. The flush was in the unfinished basement, for example, and he died on a couch that was itself thirty or forty years old and very much out of fashion -- see below. There's been speculation since the time of the murders that Lizzie did it (and I'm in the camp that believes she did the murders) because, at the age of 32, she wanted to have a social life among a "better" class, and needed to hurry her inheritance along.

I've never seen a reference to anything like a phonograph in reading about the case, and the household has been described in some detail. A phonograph would have been an unusual thing to find there, given that Borden wasn't one to spend on newfangled gew-gaws. So, while it makes for good set-dressing, I doubt if there was any phonograph in the house. Frank's joke is worth the price of admission, though.