I hope someone will make this available on video. I can't see making a 2nd trip back to the Site in 2010. I was there a few months ago. (my previous trip was about 1966).
Jim On Oct 28, 2010, at 10:16 AM, mark lynch wrote: > > A fascinating presentation at the Edison NHP next Saturday. Read below for > free reservations. > > Hope to see some of you there. > > Best, > Mark > > "Humanity's First Recordings of its Own Voice" - David Giovannoni at Thomas > Edison NHP, November 6, 7:00 pm > > Thomas Edison NHP News Release > Contact: Karen Sloat-Olsen > Phone: 973-736-0550 x17 > Reservations: 973-736-0550 x89 > > Humanity's First Recordings of its Own Voice > Historian David Giovannoni Presentation > > WEST ORANGE, NJ - On Saturday evening, November 6, 2010, at 7:00 pm, Thomas > Edison National Historical Park welcomes historian David Giovannoni who will > give a 75-minute illustrated presentation titled "Humanity's First Recordings > of its Own Voice." The program will be held at the Laboratory Complex at 211 > Main Street. Admission to the program is free. Seating is limited and > reservations are required. Reservations can be made by calling 973-736-0550, > ext.89. > Thomas Edison's tinfoil phonograph of 1877 is rightly considered one of the > marvels of the nineteenth century. But in mid-nineteenth-century France, > amateur inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville conceived of a rather > similar machine. Between 1854 and 1860 he experimented with focusing > airborne sounds of speech and music onto paper. His phonautograph bore a > striking resemblance to Edison's phonograph of 20 years later. But his > recordings, unlike Edison's, were meant to be read by the eye, not heard by > the ear. > > For a century-and-a-half his experiments lay quietly in the venerable French > archives in which he deposited them. Then in 2007 a few audio historians > hypothesized there was a real possibility that modern technology could > develop these experimental recordings like dormant photographic plates. > Instead of exposing images, however, these would bear sounds perhaps even > humanity's first recordings of its own voice! > > In this presentation David Giovannoni recounts how he and his colleagues have > identified dozens of these forgotten documents and coaxed several to talk and > to sing. A principal in their discovery and recovery, Giovannoni is the > first person since Scott de Martinville to personally examine every > recording. He'll explain how they were made and how they are played. He'll > discuss Scott de Martinville experiments, his reception in established > scientific circles, and his early descent into an unmarked grave. > > For more information or directions please call 973-736-0550 ext. 11 or visit > our website at www.nps.gov/edis. > > -NPS- > > National Park Service > U.S. Department of the Interior Thomas Edison > National Historical Park > 211 Main Street > West Orange, NJ 07052 > > > > _______________________________________________ > Phono-L mailing list > http://phono-l.oldcrank.org _______________________________________________ Phono-L mailing list http://phono-l.oldcrank.org
