The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Just read a book by Steven Johnson titled "How We Got To Now". In the chapter on sound it stated that when Edison invented the phonograph he thought it would be used for audio letters through the mail, and when Bell invented the phone he thought it would be used for listening to music. In reality the inventors had it backwards.

Has anyone ever heard this before?

Rich Gordon

Yes, what Steven Johnson states is true, but only partially. In Edison's article (ghost-written by his associate Edward H. Johnson) in the June 1878 issue of The North American Review, he outlined ten possible uses for the Phonograph, one of which was mailing audio messages. Steven Johnson has seized upon this one possible use and suggested that this was Edison's sole vision for his invention. He is either partially-informed, or is simply playing around with ideas to make his book more interesting.

Bell also foresaw the possibility of transmitting music long distances, but this certainly wasn't his primary claim for the Telephone's utility, as anyone who takes the trouble to read the patent can attest.

This sort of "cherry-picking" is akin to stating that in the 1960s Chevrolet marketed the Corvette, while Mercedes-Benz was marketing the 600. Therefore, Chevy was a sports-car company and Mercedes-Benz was known for limousines, but eventually Mercedes had to make sports cars and Chevy had to make family cars. The facts are smeared around a bit.

Interestingly, the Phonograph and the Telephone were exhibited together in the late 1870s, because of the relationship between them which Steven Johnson has danced around. Edward H. Johnson (Edison's associate referred to above) was one of these early exhibitors, and there is a story that, shortly before the Phonograph's invention, Johnson was describing Edison's Repeating Telegraph (sort of a telephonic recorder/replayer) to a crowd in Buffalo, NY. The audience's response to an invention that could record and repeat a human voice was supposedly what prompted Edison to realize that his "repeater" had the capacity to become the "Phonograph." The story is surely apocryphal, but it illustrates the blending at the time of the two emerging technologies.

Steven Johnson seems to have reverted to that short period about 136 years ago when the relative uses of the Phonograph and the Telephone were somewhat muddled.

George P.

phonogfp wrote: Interestingly, the Phonograph and the Telephone were exhibited together in the late 1870s ... Edward H. Johnson (Edison's associate referred to above) was one of these early exhibitors, and there is a story that, shortly before the Phonograph's invention, Johnson was describing Edison's Repeating Telegraph (sort of a telephonic recorder/replayer) to a crowd in Buffalo, NY. The audience's response to an invention that could record and repeat a human voice was supposedly what prompted Edison to realize that his "repeater" had the capacity to become the "Phonograph." The story is surely apocryphal, but it illustrates the blending at the time of the two emerging technologies.

I tell you the true historical background lying behind this story. C. W. Green, General Manager of the local Permanent Exhibition Co., proposed 2000 listeners the recording of speech at Johnson's telephone concert in Philadelphia on August 3, 1877, xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [see PS 1 below]. Johnson quickly regained the sovereignty of information, creating a sensation, when he told his own audience nine days later at the Hotel Stockton, Cape May, that Edison not only invented an instrument to record speech on prepared paper, but "redelivered" it "automatically" from the same paper "at any time."

PS 1: I see from Patrick's article, see George's remark below, that I made an important reading error. Instead of "Green ... told the audience what you [= Edison] proposed today in the way of recording speech" Johnson wrote "Green ... told the audience what you proposed to do in the way of recording speech". From this follows that Green didn't anticipate Edison, as I mistakenly wrote first. Instead, he obviously reported information that he got from Johnson.

PS 2: Patrick's article can be read here: http://www.phonozoic.net/speech-acousti ... ephone.pdf

rgordon939 wrote:In the chapter on sound it stated that ... when Bell invented the phone he thought it would be used for listening to music. ...

Has anyone ever heard this before?

Bell indeed organized telephone concerts as part of his lectures upon the development of the telephone. For example, on August 5, 1877 in Providence, Rhode Island, when the Brigade Band, performing at Bell's laboratory in Boston, was "faintly heard by close listening at the tube of the telephone."

Starkton wrote: I tell you the true historical background lying behind this story. C. W. Green, General Manager of the local Permanent Exhibition Co., proposed 2000 listeners the recording of speech at Johnson's telephone concert in Philadelphia on August 3, 1877, anticipating Edison's idea. Johnson quickly regained the sovereignty of information, creating a sensation, when he told his own audience nine days later at the Hotel Stockton, Cape May, that Edison not only invented an instrument to record speech on prepared paper, but "redelivered" it "automatically" from the same paper "at any time."

Thanks for the historical account, Stephan. I remember reading about this in Patrick Feaster's outstanding article, Speech Acoustics and the Keyboard Telephone: Rethinking Edison's Discovery of the Phonograph Principle, which appeared in the ARSC Journal Vol.38, No.1, Spring 2007. This is the best published account of the Phonograph's invention I've read.

George P.

Starkton wrote: PS 2: Patrick's article can be read here: http://www.phonozoic.net/speech-acousti ... ephone.pdf

Thanks for that article!

Bill

Lucius1958 wrote:

Starkton wrote: PS 2: Patrick's article can be read here: http://www.phonozoic.net/speech-acousti ... ephone.pdf

Thanks for that article!

Bill

Yes - thanks for posting the link, Stephan. I didn't know the article was available online, but I'm happy to learn it is.

One of the most interesting things that Feaster describes is the existence of TWO "eureka experiences" leading to Edison's discovery of the Phonograph. (These two separate experiences also account for two versions offered by Edison himself over the years.)

The first "eureka experience" was the buzzing of the telegraphic embosser, which led to Edison's conception of recreating sound/speech. Thus, sound reproduction was conceived before recording.

The second "eureka experience" was the finger-pricking of the embossing needle, leading to Edison's conception of recording sound/speech.

Since reproduction was envisioned before recording, Edison's initial efforts were directed toward making "synthetic speech" much as had been done by Faber and others. (Picture a fabricated human head with anatomically correct rubber tongue, movable jaw, palate, vocal cords, etc. A bellows would generate air flow and synthetic speech could be created - - although hardly intelligible!)

The second "eureka experience" - that of recording sound (instead of synthesizing it), brought about the invention of the Phonograph. Edison would not need to create the words or letters, but could record the actual sound. From our perspective, the recording seems intuitive, but this aspect eluded several great inventive minds of the time; notably Alexander Graham Bell. He wrote to his father-in-law in March 18,1878,

"It is a most astonishing thing to me that I could possibly have let this invention slip through my fingers when I consider how my thoughts have been directed to this subject for so many years. So nearly did I come to the idea that I had stated again and again in my public lectures the fundamental principles of the Phonograph. In showing to an audience the tracings produced by the Phonautograph I had said if the motions indicated by the curves could be produced mechanically in any way the sounds would be audible...and yet in spite of this the thought never occurred to me to indent a substance and from the indentation to produce sound."

We are all products of our times, and think in ways we have been taught to think. Fascinating stuff.

George P.

Yes, I echo the others, "Thank you" for the link to Feaster's article! Fascinating. A "must read" this afternoon.

Fran

Great article! I can't believe recording and playback was not invented a bit earlier. It was right in front of them. It has inspired me to build my own tin foil phonograph this winter. I hope I can do?
Kevan