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| Edison |
Around
the World on the Phonograph
Thomas
Edison
October
1888
Thomas Edison was one sharp operator. His first patent was
for a vote recorder – which no one bought. Why? Because it made it harder for politicians
to steal elections. The lesson Edison took from this was to focus on inventions
people wanted. In this, he was far more than an inventor – he was an
entrepreneur, a self-promoter. It seems fitting, then, that his should be the
first recorded voice we are intended to hear.
His cylinder recordings are the first commercially feasible
ones. Sound conducted through a horn vibrates a diaphragm, which in turn moves
a stylus; the stylus etches the resulting groove into the spinning cylinder.
Reversing the process by spinning the cylinder again and placing the stylus in
the groove allows the sound to replay via the horn.
Originally, the musician or speaker had to stand in front of
the horn all day, repeating the performance, in order to make copies; eventually,
mechanical multiples could be produced, but the loss of sound quality was
great. Cylinder coatings went from tinfoil to wax to cellulose to plastic,
until cylinders lost out to cheaper, less bulky discs. The number of effective
playbacks in a cylinder went from fewer than 20 to 100 or more – another reason
to switch to the more reliable, if more brittle, disc records.
Here Edison promotes not only his invention but himself, the
genial but commanding science-magician, the “Wizard of Menlo Park.” He
describes the kind of round-the-world journey that could only be contemplated
by people well-off enough to afford his new invention – Edison knows his new
toy will best be marketed to the leisure class.
Edison relates a string of cities this imaginary journey
takes him through – Liverpool, London, Calais, “Paree,” a litany of
destinations the smart traveler would not miss. Edison cracks a joke about
being laid up with cholera in “Bombay” for a few weeks, and continues through
Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and so on back home. This is the itinerary of the
Cook’s Tour, the pioneering travel agency of the 19th century. In
the wake of the “Grand Tour” usually taken by upper-class travelers in Europe
for 200 years, package tours such as Cook’s and others starting mining the
pockets of the culturally and socially ambitious nouveau riche and expanding
middle class. The Internet Archive has an excellent recording of it here.
Edison is selling not just a product, not just a process,
but an assumption that he’s discussing a common, and reachable, aspiration.
He’s selling a vision of a wider-ranging life.
The National Recording
Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in
the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up next: The Edison
Talking Doll cylinders.
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