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Recordings and audio recordings from 1861–1877

2025.06.27
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Recordings and audio recordings from 1861–1877

The period from 1861 to 1877 was a time of significant change, including the restructuring of modern nation-states, the expansion of transportation networks, and advancements in communication technology. In the United States, the American Civil War began in 1861, ended in 1865, and concluded with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. In the same year, Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) was assassinated, and the post-war United States entered a period of reconstruction. In Japan, the Meiji Restoration progressed in 1868, marking a major transformation of the political system and social structure. In 1869, the Suez Canal opened, greatly shortening the distance and time of sea travel between Europe and Asia. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 altered the balance of power in Europe, and the German Empire was established in 1871. In 1873, a financial crisis occurred, leading to a prolonged recession fueled by railroad investment and international finance. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell's (1847–1922) telephone attracted attention at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, and in 1877, the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 took place in the United States. Amidst these political, economic, transportation, and communication changes, the history of sound recording also underwent a major transformation, shifting from the phonautograph, which recorded sound visually, to the phonograph, which recorded and reproduced sound.

Number of recording/playback experiments posted during this period: 1

1861

July 15

On July 15, 1861, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville (1817–1879) submitted a document summarizing his phonograph recording results, "Inscription automatique des sons de l'air au moyen d'une oreille artificielle," to the French Academy of Sciences. This document does not indicate that new recordings were made in 1861, but rather serves to organize and preserve the results of phonogram experiments conducted from the late 1850s to 1860. The recording of "Au Clair de la Lune" from April 9, 1860, has also been confirmed as being included in this 1861 submission. Scott de Martinville's device was not designed to reproduce sound, but rather to fix the vibrations of sound traveling through the air as lines on paper for visual study. The 1861 submission demonstrates that traces of sound were preserved as academic records for posterity before the advent of reproducible recording devices.

1864

Alexander Melville Bell (1819–1905) devised Visible Speech in 1864. Visible Speech was a phonetic notation system that used symbols to represent the position and movement of the articulatory organs, allowing learners to study speech without relying on hearing. While it was not a recording device, it was an attempt to replace sound with visible symbols, and it later became one of the background factors for Alexander Graham Bell's research into visualizing sound vibrations. While phonograms recorded sound waves as lines, Visible Speech was a method of symbolizing human speech actions. In that it converted sound into a "visible form," it can be positioned as an event that predates recording and speech documentation.

1866

In 1866, Joseph Henry (1797–1878) purchased a phonograph made by Rudolph Koenig (1832–1901) for the Smithsonian Institution. Koenig was a Parisian instrument maker who manufactured and sold scientific instruments based on Scott de Martinville's phonograph. This device did not reproduce sound, but rather visualized sound waves for research. While this purchase does not indicate that new recordings were made, it does show that the phonograph was introduced not only to experimental equipment in France but also to scientific institutions in the United States. This event is significant in the history of sound recording before Edison, as it shows that a sound recording device was moved and preserved as research equipment.

1874

William Henry Barlow (1812–1902) published his logograph in 1874, a device that recorded changes in air pressure during speech. The logograph was not a device that recorded sound waves themselves, but rather a device that recorded the breath pressure and duration when a person spoke. Therefore, although its purpose differed from the phonograph and later the phonograph, it is positioned as a prehistory of speech recording as research that treated speech as a physical line or record.

In the same year, 1874, Alexander Graham Bell and Clarence John Blake (1843–1919) created an ear phonautograph using a removed human middle ear. This device converted sound vibrations into lines on a soot-covered glass plate through the structure of the middle ear; it was not a sound-reproducing machine. However, by visualizing sound vibrations using the structure of the human ear rather than an artificial membrane, it was an attempt to extend the concept of the phonautograph into the fields of medicine, acoustics, and hearing education. In 1874, progress was being made not only in recording sounds to hear them, but also in recording sounds to observe them and understand the mechanisms of speech and hearing.

1875

Clarence John Blake published "The Use of the Membrana Tympani as a Phonautograph" in the February 4, 1875 issue of The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Volume 92, Number 5. This paper documented the ear phonautograph experiment, which Alexander Graham Bell and Blake had created in 1874, within the context of medicine and acoustics. The idea of using the eardrum as a membrane that receives sound vibrations and recording its movement as a line was an attempt to apply the conventional phonautograph to the human auditory organ. With this paper, the ear phonautograph was preserved as a sound visualization experiment recorded in a contemporary medical journal.

1876

In 1876, Clarence John Blake published "The Use of the Membrana Tympani as a Phonautograph and Logograph" in Volume 5, Number 1 of the Archives of Ophthalmology and Otology. This paper dealt with the concept of logographs, which record traces of speech, in addition to phonographs of the ear. Although it was not a device that reproduced sound, it shows that research into recording sound as lines using the human auditory organ and speech movements was continuing in the fields of medicine and acoustics.

In the same year, 1876, Charles-Léopold Rosapelly (dates of birth and death unknown), in collaboration with Louis Havet (1849–1925), applied the experimental physiology methods of Étienne-Jules Marey (1830–1904) to record the movements of the larynx, lips, and soft palate during speech. This research did not involve recording sound waves themselves, but rather recording the bodily movements of pronunciation as diagrams. Speech was beginning to be treated not only as something to be heard, but also as something to be measured and represented by lines.

Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) designed the Embossing Translating Telegraph in 1876. This device was not a voice recorder, but rather a device for recording telegraph signals and later retransmitting and changing their speed. However, the idea of playing back recorded signals was deeply related to Edison's vision for the phonograph, which he developed the following year, 1877. In 1876, voice recording was still divided into several research areas, but elements such as recording bodily movement, visualizing sound, and playing back signals had accumulated up until just before the establishment of the phonograph.

1877

In 1877, the movement from visually recording sound to recording and reproducing sound became clear. Charles Cros (1842–1888) proposed a concept to reproduce sound from sound traces such as phonograms, but he did not actually build a device. Meanwhile, Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931), whose research on telephones and telegraphs led him to design a device to record and later reproduce the vibrations of voice. In the latter half of 1877, the design changed from a paper tape system to a tin foil cylinder phonograph, and in December, he reached the point of experimenting with recording and playback using the same machine. This year marked the transition from sound recording, which had been ongoing since Scott de Martinville, to a reproducible recording technology.

April 30

On April 30, 1877, Charles Cros submitted a sealed document to the French Academy of Sciences describing a method for recording and later reproducing sound. This concept aimed to convert recorded vibrations back into sound based on sound traces such as phonograms. Cros later called this device the Paléophone, but it is not confirmed that he actually built or tested the device. The sealed document of April 30 indicates that a method for reproducing sound from recorded traces had been specifically conceived before Edison's phonograph was completed.

Around July 17th–18th

Around July 17, 1877, Edison envisioned the telephone as a "talking telegraph" and was considering ways to record telephone messages. This was not a recording device for preserving music or readings, but rather a concept for a recording device that was an extension of the telephone and telegraph. The following day, around July 18, Edison conducted an experiment in which he attached an embossing needle to a diaphragm and brought it into contact with rapidly moving paraffin paper. This experiment confirmed that vibrations from the voice were imprinted on the paper, and the possibility of recording and later reproducing voice began to emerge. This stage of conception was not yet a tin foil cylinder phonograph, but it was the starting point for moving from the idea of recording telephone voices to a reproducible voice recording device.

Around August

Around August 1877, Edison began calling the sound recording device he sketched in his notebooks a phonograph. This early concept was not yet the tin foil cylinder device that would be completed in December, but rather closer to a paper tape-based design for recording telephone and telegraph messages. Edward Hibberd Johnson (1846–1917) mentioned this new sound recording device concept in his lectures introducing Edison's inventions. Although the phonograph design from around August was not a finished product, it clearly demonstrated the idea of treating sound not as a temporary phenomenon, but as something that could be recorded by a machine.

September 7th

On September 7, 1877, Edison drafted an informal announcement to informally announce his new invention, the phonograph. However, since the phonograph was not yet ready for public display at this point, Edison did not publish the announcement. By September, the concept of recording and playing back sound was already clear, but the specific form of the device was still in the trial-and-error stage. The design for the tin foil cylinder that would lead to actual production would become more concrete in November.

October 10th

On October 10, 1877, Le Blanc, or Abbé Lenoir (dates of birth and death unknown), published an article in La Semaine du Clergé introducing Charles Cros's concept. The sealed document of April 30 was an unpublished document deposited with the French Academy of Sciences, but this October article publicly explained Cros's idea of converting recorded sound traces back into sound. Even at this point, the Paleophone had not yet been manufactured as a working device. This means that a method of recording and reproducing sound was shown through printed materials before Edison's phonograph became known in France.

October 31

On October 31, 1877, Alexander Graham Bell presented "Researches in Electric Telephony" at the Society of Telegraph Engineers. While this paper focused on telephones, it also serves as documentation of Bell's understanding of how the human ear works and how sound vibrations manifest. His 1874 phonograph experiment recorded sound vibrations as visible lines. Bell's 1877 lecture demonstrates that his acoustic research had expanded into telephone technology. Although the presentation did not directly deal with recording devices, it shows that research into mechanically handling sound had expanded from the visualization of sound to its electrical transmission.

November 1st

On November 1, 1877, Edison sketched a phonograph design for recording sound on paper tape. This design was not yet a tin foil cylinder device, but closer to the concept of a device for recording telegraph signals on paper tape. Edison believed that the mechanism for retransmitting telegraph recordings could be applied to telephone voices. The November 1 sketch indicates that he had progressed from his July concept of telephone voice recording to the stage of designing an actual playable voice recording device.

November 10th

On November 10, 1877, Edison sketched a phonograph design using a cylinder wrapped in tin foil. This design envisioned rotating a grooved cylinder by hand, imprinting the vibrations of the voice onto the tin foil wrapped around its surface, and then reproducing the sound by tracing the same trace. Compared to the paper tape design from November 1, this sketch was quite close to the tin foil cylinder phonograph that would later be completed. The concept of not only recording sound in one direction but also retrieving sound again from the same recording surface began to take shape as a concrete mechanical design at this point.

Late November

By the end of November 1877, Edison was satisfied with his tin foil cylinder phonograph design and commissioned mechanic John Kruesi (1843–1899) to build a working model. The design, shown in a sketch on November 10, moved from a conceptual drawing to a machine to be built in the workshop. The device built by Kruesi was completed in early December and produced results that surprised Edison and his assistants.

December 4th – around December 6th

The tin foil cylinder phonograph is believed to have been manufactured and completed between December 4th and 6th, 1877. The diary of Edison's assistant, Charles Batchelor (1845–1910), is treated as evidence that John Cruci built the phonograph on December 4th and completed it two days later. Therefore, current research suggests that the completion date of the phonograph is early December 1877, rather than August 12th, 1877, which became widely accepted in later years. The device, which moved from a conceptual drawing to actual construction in late November, took shape within these few days as a machine that could actually record and play back sound.

Around December 6th

Around December 6, 1877, Edison is said to have attempted to record and play back "Mary Had a Little Lamb" by dictating it using a tin foil cylinder phonograph made by John Cruci. Although the tin foil recording itself from 1877 no longer exists, this experiment is remembered as an event in which sound was successfully recorded as a physical trace and then reproduced from that trace. Here, we present it as a recording and playback experiment, not as an existing recording.

TitleArtistMatrixCatalog No.
Mary Had a Little LambThomas Alva Edison

[Events of December 6, 1877]
The Washington Post was launched.
On December 6, 1877, the first issue of the daily newspaper The Washington Post was published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. The inaugural issue consisted of four pages and cost three cents. On the same day that Edison's phonograph is believed to have been completed, a new newspaper was launched for readers in the political city of Washington.

December 7th

On December 7, 1877, Edison, along with Charles Batchelor and Edward Hibbard Johnson, brought a tin foil cylinder phonograph to the editorial office of Scientific American in New York. A demonstration at the office showed that the machine could record a person's voice and play it back in audible form. This visit marked the transition of the phonograph from a laboratory device to a widely known invention through newspapers and magazines.

December 15th

On December 15, 1877, Edison signed a patent specification for a phonograph. The specification outlined the purpose of recording human voices and other sounds as permanent traces, and later reproducing those traces. After confirming in early December that sound recording and reproduction were indeed possible through experiments, Edison proceeded with the patent protection process. This specification formed the basis for the phonograph patent later filed and registered as United States Patent No. 200,521.

December 22

Scientific American published "The Talking Phonograph" in its December 22, 1877 issue. The article followed a phonograph demonstration held at the editorial office on December 7, introducing to readers the new machine that could record and reproduce human voices in an audible form. This report brought Edison's invention to the attention of not only experts and inventors but also the general public. The phonograph transformed from an experimental device for recording sound into an invention that attracted widespread public attention.

December 24

On December 24, 1877, Edison filed United States Patent No. 200,521. This patent concerned a phonograph or speaking machine that aimed to record human voices and other sounds as permanent traces and later restore them to an audible form. Following experiments in early December, a demonstration on December 7, and the signing of the specification on December 15, the phonograph moved from the demonstration stage to the patent application stage. This application was granted as a patent on February 19, 1878.

References

1860
TOP
1878-1886
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