Music recorded in August 1891
July 1891 was a month in which the circulation of knowledge and social tensions simultaneously became visible. The International Copyright Act of 1891 came into effect in the United States on July 1, 1891, marking a step forward in the system of cross-border publishing and creative protection. In terms of communications and payments, the Vienna Postal Order Convention and the Vienna Cash on Delivery Convention were signed on July 4, 1891, establishing a postal network capable of handling not only sending but also paying. In politics and the military, the Chilean Civil War of 1891 saw the arrival of Congressional military forces in the north in early July, signaling growing signs that the conflict was entering a new phase. In labor history, the 1891 shearers' strike in the Colony of Queensland saw the public circulation of a declaration of struggle policy in July 1891, which helped to shape the language of the modern labor movement.Furthermore, in terms of Native American policy, the Agreement with the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Sioux (1891) was concluded in July 1891, which led to the reorganization of reservation boundaries and land.
Confirmed recordings this month: 0
Summary of information on recordings made in August 1891
For August 1891, no information can be found in existing major recording catalogs or discographies that would allow us to determine the individual recordings made that month. However, we can find multiple letters dated August 1891 between Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) and local phonograph companies that operated cylinder recording (wax cylinders) as a business, and the metadata in these primary sources confirms that business operations, including recording (cylinder records), continued. Furthermore, we can confirm that Edison filed a patent application for a silent video device in the same month, positioning this as a peripheral technology development contemporaneous with the sound recording industry.
Continuity of the cylinder recording business as seen in a business letter dated August 1891
There is a letter from the Western Pennsylvania Phonograph Co. to Edison dated August 4, 1891, which includes the subject classification "Cylinder recordings." There is also a letter from the New Jersey Phonograph Co. to Edison dated August 18, 1891, which includes the classifications "Cylinder recordings" and "Cylinder phonograph." While the full content of these letters cannot be determined here, the archive's primary source metadata confirms that, at the very least, as of August 1891, practices regarding the contracting and use of cylinder recordings were underway.
- https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/document/D9152AAL
- https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/document/D9152AAN
- https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/folder/D9152-F
Why is it difficult to pinpoint the "recording date" of August 1891?
Most of the existing commercial cylinder recordings from the early 1890s are organized by year or year range, and there are only a limited number of cases where the recording date (let alone the month and day) can be determined. Therefore, in order to determine which titles were recorded in August 1891 as a monthly page heading, field records, ledgers, advertisements (which clearly state the recording date) dated that month are required, but it is not possible to find definitive information limited to that month in major publicly available discographies.
- https://archive.org/stream/ColumbiaPhonograph1889-1896/Columbia%20Phonograph%201889-1896_djvu.txt
- https://timbrooks.net/PDFs/colhist78.pdf
A patent application for a silent imaging device was filed in August 1891 as a peripheral topic.
It is known that Edison filed patent applications for the Kinetoscope and Kinetograph in August 1891. While these were not sound recordings themselves, they are peripheral information that can be incorporated into the monthly background of the history of the phonograph industry, as they demonstrate that research and development into "recording media" was running in parallel at the same time.
