Graphophone

Object Details

American Graphophone Company

Description

This is a business dictation machine that uses wax cylinders to record and play back sound. The basic design for the machine emerged from research at the Volta Laboratory, Washington, D.C., the sound research facility established by Alexander Graham Bell with his associates Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter.

Tainter refined the design, patented several versions of it, and oversaw the manufacturing of the first six experimental graphophones at Bergmann & Co in New York in 1885. He also supervised the making of commercial models in a sewing machine factory in Bridgeport, Conn., beginning in 1887. In these early commercial machines, the dictation apparatus sits atop a sewing machine table and employs a treadle to rotate the mandrel holding the cylinder recording.

On this machine from 1888, the treadle is marked "American Graphophone Company"; the governor is marked "Patented July 20th 1886." The recorder-reproducer is marked: "The Phonograph-Graphophone m'f'd by the American Graphophone Company for Jesse H. Lippincott, Sole Licensee/ Type C No. 03042" and numerous patent dates.

Reference:

Wile, Raymond R. "The Development of Sound Recording at the Volta Laboratory," Association for Recorded Sound Collections Journal 21, No. 2, 1990, pp. 208-225.

Location

Currently not on view

Credit Line

Gift of Alexander Graham Bell

ca 1888

ID Number

ME.287825

catalog number

287825

accession number

58498

Object Name

graphophone

Physical Description

metal (overall: mechanism material)

iron (overall: table frame material)

wood (overall: table top material)

Measurements

wheel: 12 in; 30.48 cm

governor: 6 in x 3 in x 5 in; 15.24 cm x 7.62 cm x 12.7 cm

recording and repriducing device: 10 in x 6 1/2 in x 8 in; 25.4 cm x 16.51 cm x 20.32 cm

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Work and Industry: Mechanisms

Communications

Computers & Business Machines

Hear My Voice

National Museum of American History

Record ID

nmah_1413891

Metadata Usage (text)

CC0

GUID (Link to Original Record)

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746ad-64c7-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa