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Graphophone recording of three New York newspapermen in 1889 discussing year's events

Current events 1889, New York World Building cornerstone ceremony

Three reporters for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World newspaper discuss the events of the year 1889, using a Graphophone to record their voices.
On October 10, 1889, the day of the cornerstone laying for the World Building, three reporters for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World went into a room at the offices of the Metropolitan Phonographic Company on Fifth Avenue and made use of a new technological wonder called the Graphophone, the first practical machine for recording invented by Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, and Charles Sumner Tainter. For just under three minutes, the men discussed the events of the year. The original wax cylinder recording was placed in the cornerstone box. When the building was demolished in 1955, the box was retrieved and most of the contents given to Columbia. The original wax recording was transferred to reel-to-reel tape at that time, and has since been digitized. It is among the earliest known recordings of the human voice.

World Papers RBML

Wednesday, March 31, 2010 12:35 PM

from reel-to-reel tape created from wax cylinder recording

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