BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: America's Listening

DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: America's Listening:

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Description of Pictures: America's Listening
October 19, 2018 – TBA
America's Listening tells the story of recorded sound and five of the innovations that contributed to how we consume music and movies today. Artifacts on view include Thomas Edison’s phonograph, Alexander Graham Bell’s graphophone, Emile Berliner’s gramophone, Ray Dolby’s noise reduction system, and Apple’s iPod.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SIAHAL_200925_013.JPG: Interactive screens are disabled due to Covid-19.
2. SIAHAL_200925_015.JPG: Apple's iTunes MP3 and other digital players used sound files, not records or tapes. In 2001, Apple introduced iTunes, an online platform that sold digital songs for just 99 cents apiece -- which licensed and paid royalty fees for the music it sold -- made purchasing so easy that it helped reduce illegal file sharing. Apple, pushed by cofounder Steve Jobs, then developed a user-friendly digital player, the iPod. Listening Anytime Ever-smaller players with ever-larger capacities for tunes and, later, podcasts, made it possible to listen anytime -- even all day. As many workplaces transformed into cubicle farms or as workers moved to communal spaces, players with earbuds provided a sense of privacy. And user-created playlists became valued expressions of individual identity.
3. SIAHAL_200925_019.JPG: Diamond Multimedia's "Rio," the first commercially successful portable digital audio player, 1998.
4. SIAHAL_200925_024.JPG: CD with iTunes software, 2001.
5. SIAHAL_200925_030.JPG: SanDisk's Sansa MP3 player with flash memory, 2008.
6. SIAHAL_200925_044.JPG: A first-generation iPod containing a small hard drive with 5 gigabytes of memory that could hold 1,000 songs, 2002.
7. SIAHAL_200925_068.JPG: One of the digital tinfoil phonographs used for demonstrations, around 1878.
8. SIAHAL_200925_073.JPG: A one-minute tinfoil recording, around 1879.
9. SIAHAL_200925_077.JPG: Edison's Talking Machine In 1877 Thomas Edison invented the first device to ever record and play back sound. Soundwaves captured by a mouthpiece caused a stylus attached to a diaphragm to move up and down, making indentations on a sheet of tinfoil wrapped around a rotating drum. In playback, the stylus traced those indentations, causing the diaphragm to recreate a recognizable version of the original sound.
10. SIAHAL_200925_079.JPG: Listening in Public Thomas Edison's "talking machine" was a public sensation. It -- not the light bulb -- earned him the moniker "Wizard of Menlo Park." Americans first read about the device in the papers, but soon witnessed it for themselves for public demonstrations around the country. They were in awe. This machine could capture a sound and transport it to the future.
11. SIAHAL_200925_085.JPG: Sales of Thomas Edison's tinfoil phonograph were poor -- its recordings were fragile and short-lived -- and he abandoned it. Nearly a decade later, spurred by competition from Alexander Graham Bell, Edison made multiple improvements and introduced new machines that found popular appeal. The Edison Home Phonograph, first manufactured in 1896, played individually prerecorded wax cylinders.
12. SIAHAL_200925_096.JPG: One of Volta Lab's prototype graphaphones, 1886. The wax cylinder could record about five minutes of dictation, or two or three short business letters.
13. SIAHAL_200925_101.JPG: Bell's Graphophone Alexander Graham Bell and his associated at the Volta Laboratory set out to best Thomas Edison's original phonograph. They were convinced of the profit-making potential of an improved device -- especially one that could capture more clearly the speaking voice. They originated wax cylinder records, and developed a machine to record and play them, the graphophone.
14. SIAHAL_200925_104.JPG: Listening at Work Inventors and investors saw recorded sound not as a source of entertainment, but as a tool for business. And new corporations looked to "talking machines" to increase efficiencies in their ever-growing managerial departments. But these devices enabled new workplace hierarchies, with male managers upstairs recording dictation that female typists downstairs played back and put to paper.
15. SIAHAL_200925_110.JPG: Wax cylinder record, early 1890s. Gift of Alexander Graham Bell
16. SIAHAL_200925_115.JPG: Berliner's Gramophone In 1887 German immigrant Emile Berliner patented the first in a series of inventions that would result in the first commercially successful disc record and a machine to play it: the gramophone. He also created a process to mass-produce multiple copies from a single master recording. Flat discs were longer playing, easier to store, and more durable than cylinders.
17. SIAHAL_200925_120.JPG: Listening at Work Inventors and investors saw recorded sound not as a source of entertainment, but as a tool for business. And new corporations looked to "talking machines" to increase efficiencies in their ever-growing managerial departments. But these devices enabled new workplace hierarchies, with male managers upstairs recording dictation that female typists downstairs played back and put to paper.
18. SIAHAL_200925_123.JPG: Experimental gramaphone record made from celluloid, 1888. Emile Berliner eventually settled on a shellac compound for the discs. Gift of Emile Berliner
19. SIAHAL_200925_133.JPG: Prototype gramophone Emile Berliner used for the first public demonstration of his machine in Philadelphia, 1888. Gift of Emile Berliner
20. SIAHAL_200925_138.JPG: Commercial versions of the gramophone were a hit with the public, who thrilled at the expanding repertoire of popular music and classical celebrity performers available on mass-produced discs.
21. SIAHAL_200925_145.JPG: Ray Dolby Gateway to Culture To be an inventor, you have to be willing to live with a sense of uncertainty. Ray Dolby
22. SIAHAL_200925_150.JPG: Dolby's Noise Reduction System Recording on magnetic tape introduced unwanted noise or "hiss" to the sound; the noise only accumulated as the original production tapes were duplicated, then played. In 1965, Ray Dolby invented electronic circuitry that removed unwanted noise by processing the audio signal. Recording studios quickly adopted Dolby's system, and makers of cassette tape players soon followed.
23. SIAHAL_200925_152.JPG: Listening on the Move Cassette tapes were small and easily transported. Small, lightweight cassette players, whether handheld or tucked into fanny packs, were a boon to commuters and joggers. Transistor radios had made music portable in the 1950s, but cassettes let the listener be the DJ by selecting or creating their own "mix" tapes.
24. SIAHAL_200925_154.JPG: Ray Dolby's first product, the model A301, used a circuit design that reduced tape noise by compressing and expanding audio signals, 1965.
25. SIAHAL_200925_157.JPG: Circuit board from the model A301, 1965
26. SIAHAL_200925_170.JPG: In 1984, Sony added a miniaturized version of Ray Dolby's noise reduction system to its Walkman Pro. The feature soon became widely available; without it, hiss was especially noticeable because listeners' headphones blocked many distracting sounds.
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