Voice 1
Welcome to Spotlight. I’m Ryan Geertsma.
Voice 2
And I’m Ruby Jones. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 3
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow;
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.
Voice 1
Have you heard that poem before? The story of young Mary and her white sheep is a popular English poem for children. It is a very old poem, and many people know it. Maybe you have even shared it with a child in your life!
Voice 2
So why are we sharing it today? Because today’s Spotlight is about the history of recording sound. And this poem, Mary Had a Little Lamb, is the first thing a human voice ever recorded!
Voice 1
Inventor Thomas Edison recorded himself reading this poem for the first time in 1877. He recorded it using one of his own inventions—the phonograph. You may have heard about Edison in a Spotlight program called ‘Lighting.’ In that program, we discussed another of his inventions – the light bulb.
Voice 2
Thomas Edison did not always know that the phonograph would be an important invention. He only hoped that it would help people communicate over long distances. You see, in the 1840’s, people developed a new system to send messages over long distances: the telegraph. This system required an operator at each end of the telegraph to send or receive a message. First, the sending operator translated a person’s message into a code of long and short signals. They sent these signals over wires. Then, a receiving operator translated the signal code back into words and wrote down the message. Finally, this operator sent the written message to the correct person.
Voice 1
However, Edison had heard of a new invention – the telephone. With this invention, people could communicate over wires using their own voices instead of code. Edison thought the telephone would be a better way for operators to send messages. Operators could listen to the messages, write them down, and send them to the correct person. This would be much easier than using a telegraph system. However, there was a problem with Edison’s plan. Often, people spoke too fast for the operator to write everything down. Messages could still be lost, or missed.
Voice 2
Edison wanted to solve this problem. He wondered if there was a way to avoid a written record of the message. To do this, he needed a way to record the spoken messages that the operator received. Edison believed he needed to record the vibrations, or sound movements, created by the voice. Then, the operator could listen to the message by playing back the recorded vibrations. This would allow the worker to write the message without mistakes.
Voice 1
Edison immediately drew plans for a device to record sound vibrations. But he always worked on many inventions at one time. So it was another four years before he was able to build the phonograph – which in Latin means “Voice Writer.”
Voice 2
Edison operated his first phonograph by turning a handle with his hand. This handle caused a cylinder or tube to keep turning. While the cylinder turned, Edison spoke into a mouthpiece. This mouthpiece sent the vibrations from the sound of his voice into the cylinder. In the cylinder there was a sheet of tinfoil – a piece of metal as thin as paper. And there was an instrument that made markings in the tinfoil. The sound vibrations are what caused the instrument to mark the tinfoil. And the marked tinfoil sheet was the recorded sound.
Voice 1
In order to play the recorded sounds back, there was a second instrument in the tube. The second instrument followed the marks made by the first instrument. This caused it to play the vibrations again. When the vibrations played, a copy of the original voice could be heard.
Voice 2
Do you remember the poem we read earlier? Well, on December sixth, 1877 Thomas Edison recorded ‘Mary Had Little Lamb.’ And this was the first time that someone recorded the human voice, and then played it back. The French inventor Edouard–Leon Scott had already recorded sound. But his invention, the phonautograph, could not play sound back. Instead, it created a picture of the sound. So, Thomas Edison was the first man to record and play back sound.
Voice 1
Edison began showing his invention to many people. People were shocked because they had never seen such a machine before! They began calling Edison’s invention “The Talking Machine.” Frank Lewis Dyer wrote a book about Thomas Edison’s life. In his book, he shares this story, as told by Edison. It is about one man who went to Edison’s laboratory to see the talking machine.
Voice 4
“For a long time some people thought it was a trick. One morning a man came to the laboratory. He asked to see the phonograph. It was Bishop Vincent. I showed him the machine and how it worked. Then he asked if he could speak a few words. I put on a fresh foil and told him to begin. He began to say many Biblical names very quickly. On hearing it played back, he said: ‘I am satisfied, now. There isn’t a man in the United States who could say those names with the same speed.’”
Voice 1
On February 19 of 1878, the United States government gave Thomas Edison a patent for his invention. Edison requested this patent so that no one else could copy his talking machine. He was the only person who could make or sell a phonograph that used a cylinder and tinfoil.
Voice 2
People all over the world were surprised by Edison’s talking machine. In 1888 some people in London, England had a party to celebrate the phonograph. But since Edison lived in the United States, he did not attend the party. Instead he sent a recording of his voice! A writer for the New York Times newspaper wrote about the party.
Voice 5
“Mr. Edison was not completely present neither was he completely not present. The people at the party could not understand how they could hear the human voice while its owner was 3,000 miles away.”
Voice 1
Thomas Edison’s talking machine was a great invention. His discovery influenced many other inventors. Together, they continued to research and develop new ways to record and play sound. It is possible to see the influence these inventions have in our lives every day. Without Thomas Edison’s Talking Machine, we would not have Spotlight!
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