Editing Phonograph (section)

== Early history ==
=== Phonautograph ===
{{Main|Phonautograph}}

The phonautograph was invented on March 25, 1857, by Frenchman [[Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville]],<ref name="TimeGraphics">{{cite web|url=https://time.graphics/event/41158|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|title=mar 25, 1857 - Phonautograph invented.|language=en-US|url-status=live|accessdate=July 13, 2022|archivedate=June 29, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220629175625/https://time.graphics/event/41158}}</ref> an editor and typographer of manuscripts at a scientific publishing house in Paris.<ref name="NatParkService">{{cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/historyculture/origins-of-sound-recording-edouard-leon-scott-de-martinville.htm|title=Origins of Sound Recording: The Inventors|publisher=[[National Park Service]]|language=en-US|url-status=live|date=July 17, 2017|accessdate=July 13, 2022|archivedate=January 22, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220122002822/https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/historyculture/origins-of-sound-recording-edouard-leon-scott-de-martinville.htm}}</ref> One day while editing Professor Longet's ''Traité de Physiologie'', he happened upon that customer's engraved illustration of the anatomy of the human ear, and conceived of "the imprudent idea of photographing the word." In 1853 or 1854 (Scott cited both years) he began working on "le problème de la parole s'écrivant elle-même" ("the problem of speech writing itself"), aiming to build a device that could replicate the function of the human ear.<ref name="NatParkService" /><ref name="FirstSounds">{{cite web|url=https://www.firstsounds.org/research/scott.php|title=Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville|publisher=First Sounds|language=en-US|url-status=live|date=2008|access-date=July 13, 2022|archivedate=July 1, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220701004645/http://www.firstsounds.org/research/scott.php}}</ref>[[File:Phonautograph-cent2.png|thumb|Dictionary illustration of a [[phonautograph]]. This version uses a barrel made of [[plaster of Paris]].|222x222px]]

Scott coated a plate of glass with a thin layer of [[lampblack]]. He then took an acoustic trumpet, and at its tapered end affixed a thin membrane that served as the analog to the [[eardrum]]. At the center of that membrane, he attached a rigid boar's bristle approximately a centimetre long, placed so that it just grazed the lampblack. As the glass plate was slid horizontally in a well formed groove at a speed of one meter per second, a person would speak into the trumpet, causing the membrane to vibrate and the stylus to trace figures<ref name="NatParkService" /> that were scratched into the lampblack.<ref name="BBCNews">{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7318180.stm|publisher=[[BBC News]]|title=Oldest recorded voices sing again|language=en|url-status=live|date=March 28, 2008|access-date=July 13, 2022|archivedate=April 17, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417185139/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7318180.stm}}</ref> On March 25, 1857, Scott received the French patent<ref>{{cite web|url=https://blogs.loc.gov/preservation/2021/12/introducing-irene/|author=Villafana, Tana|title=Observing the Slightest Motion: Using Visual Tools to Preserve Sound|publisher=[[Library of Congress]]|language=en-US|url-status=live|date=December 20, 2021|access-date=July 13, 2022|archivedate=January 3, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220103215417/https://blogs.loc.gov/preservation/2021/12/introducing-irene/}}</ref> #17,897/31,470 for his device, which he called a phonautograph.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/scott.html|title=Leon Scott and the Phonautograph|author=Schoenherr, Steven E.|publisher=[[University of San Diego]]|language=en-US|url-status=dead|date=1999|access-date=July 13, 2022|archivedate=February 7, 2018|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180207234442/http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/scott.html}}</ref> The earliest known surviving recorded sound of a human voice was conducted on April 9, 1860, when Scott recorded<ref name="BBCNews" /> someone singing the song "[[Au Clair de la Lune]]" ("By the Light of the Moon") on the device.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/2008/03/27/89148959/sound-recording-predates-edison-phonograph|title=Sound Recording Predates Edison Phonograph|work=[[All Things Considered]]|via=[[NPR]]|language=en-US|url-status=live|date=March 27, 2008|access-date=July 13, 2022|archivedate=May 26, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220526211443/https://www.npr.org/2008/03/27/89148959/sound-recording-predates-edison-phonograph}}</ref> However, the device was not designed to play back sounds,<ref name="BBCNews" /><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/historyculture/origins-of-sound-recording-edouard-leon-scott-de-martinville.htm|title=Origins of Sound Recording: The Inventors|date=2017|website=www.nps.gov|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170921003319/https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/historyculture/origins-of-sound-recording-edouard-leon-scott-de-martinville.htm|archive-date=2017-09-21|url-status=live}}</ref> as Scott intended for people to read back the tracings,<ref name="Time5.1.18">{{cite web|url=https://time.com/5084599/first-recorded-sound/|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|title=What Was the First Sound Ever Recorded by a Machine?|author=Fabry, Merrill|language=en-US|url-status=live|date=May 1, 2018|access-date=February 13, 2022|archivedate=June 7, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220607172532/https://time.com/5084599/first-recorded-sound/}}</ref> which he called phonautograms.<ref name="FirstSounds" /> This was not the first time someone had used a device to create direct tracings of the vibrations of sound-producing objects, as [[tuning fork]]s had been used in this way by English physicist [[Thomas Young (scientist)|Thomas Young]] in 1807.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FaAYfJYVNXQC|title=Nineeenth-century Scientific Instruments|language=en-US|url-status=live|publisher=University of California Press|page=137|date=1983|isbn=9780520051607 |archivedate=February 15, 2017|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170215062429/https://books.google.com/books?id=FaAYfJYVNXQC&pg=PA137&dq=thomas+young+tuning+fork&hl=en&ei=bsY5Tcm7GYmh8QOnppXYCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBw}}</ref> By late 1857, with support from the Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale, Scott's phonautograph was recording sounds with sufficient precision to be adopted by the scientific community, paving the way for the nascent science of acoustics.<ref name="FirstSounds" />

The device's true significance in the history of recorded sound was not fully realized prior to March 2008, when it was discovered and resurrected in a Paris patent office by First Sounds, an informal collaborative of American audio historians, recording engineers, and sound archivists founded to make the earliest sound recordings available to the public. The phonautograms were then digitally converted by scientists at the [[Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory]] in California, who were able to play back the recorded sounds, something Scott had never conceived of. Prior to this point, the earliest known record of a human voice was thought to be an 1877 phonograph recording by [[Thomas Edison]].<ref name="BBCNews" /><ref name="NYTimes">{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/arts/27soun.html|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|author=Rosen, Jody|title=Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison|language=en-US|url-status=live|date=March 27, 2008|access-date=July 13, 2022|archivedate=April 13, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220413194226/https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/arts/27soun.html}}</ref> The phonautograph would play a role in the development of the [[gramophone]], whose inventor, Emile Berliner, worked with the phonautograph in the course of developing his own device.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/collections/emile-berliner/articles-and-essays/gramophone/|title=The Gramophone|publisher=[[Library of Congress]]|language=en-US|url-status=live|access-date=July 13, 2022|archivedate=June 1, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220601195449/https://www.loc.gov/collections/emile-berliner/articles-and-essays/gramophone/}}</ref>

=== Paleophone ===
[[Charles Cros]], a French poet and amateur scientist, is the first person known to have made the conceptual leap from recording sound as a traced line to the theoretical possibility of reproducing the sound from the tracing and then to devising a definite method for accomplishing the reproduction. On April 30, 1877, he deposited a sealed envelope containing a summary of his ideas with the [[French Academy of Sciences]], a standard procedure used by scientists and inventors to establish [[Scientific priority|priority of conception]] of unpublished ideas in the event of any later dispute.<ref name="RBNF">{{citation |url=http://www.cairn.info/zen.php?ID_ARTICLE=RBNF_033_0020 |title=L'impression du son |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150928231926/http://www.cairn.info/zen.php?ID_ARTICLE=RBNF_033_0020 |archive-date=2015-09-28 |work=Revue de la BNF |date=2009 |publisher=Bibliothèque nationale de France |isbn=9782717724301 |issue=33 |url-status=live}}</ref>

An account of his invention was published on October 10, 1877, by which date Cros had devised a more direct procedure: the recording stylus could scribe its tracing through a thin coating of acid-resistant material on a metal surface and the surface could then be etched in an acid bath, producing the desired groove without the complication of an intermediate photographic procedure.<ref>{{cite web | title = www.phonozoic.net | work = Transcription and translation of October 10, 1877 article on Cros "phonographe". | url = http://phonozoic.net/n0131.htm | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110724004724/http://phonozoic.net/n0131.htm | archive-date = July 24, 2011 }}</ref> The author of this article called the device a {{lang|fr|phonographe}}, but Cros himself favored the word {{lang|fr|paleophone}}, sometimes rendered in French as {{lang|fr|voix du passé}} ('voice of the past').<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brehm |first=Brett |date=2017 |title=Paleophonic Futures: Charles Cros's Audiovisual Worlds |url=https://doi.org/10.1353/ncf.2017.0004 |journal=Nineteenth-Century French Studies |volume=45 |issue=3–4 |pages=179–197 |doi=10.1353/ncf.2017.0004 |issn=1536-0172}}</ref>

Cros was a poet of meager means, not in a position to pay a machinist to build a working model, and largely content to bequeath his ideas to the [[public domain]] free of charge and let others reduce them to practice, but after the earliest reports of Edison's presumably independent invention crossed the Atlantic he had his sealed letter of April 30 opened and read at the December 3, 1877 meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, claiming due scientific credit for priority of conception.<ref>{{cite web | title = www.phonozoic.net | work = Transcription and translation of December 3, 1877 unsealing of April, 1877 Cros deposit. | url = http://WWW.phonozoic.net/n0130.htm | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110724005535/http://www.phonozoic.net/n0130.htm | archive-date = July 24, 2011 }}</ref>

Throughout the first decade (1890–1900) of commercial production of the earliest crude disc records, the direct acid-etch method first invented by Cros was used to create the metal master discs, but Cros was not around to claim any credit or to witness the humble beginnings of the eventually rich phonographic library he had foreseen. He had died in 1888 at the age of 45.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Cros|title=Charles Cro: French inventor and poet|work=[[Encyclopedia Britannica]]|access-date=2018-03-09|language=en|archive-date=2018-03-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180309183518/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Cros|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== The early phonographs ===
[[File:Drawing for a Phonograph - NARA - 595515 (cropped).jpg|thumb|[[Patent drawing]] for Edison's phonograph, May 18, 1880]]
[[Thomas Edison]] conceived the principle of recording and reproducing sound between May and July 1877 as a byproduct of his efforts to "play back" recorded [[telegraph]] messages and to automate speech sounds for transmission by [[telephone]].<ref>Patrick Feaster, "Speech Acoustics and the Keyboard Telephone: Rethinking Edison's Discovery of the Phonograph Principle," ''ARSC Journal'' 38:1 (Spring 2007), 10–43; Oliver Berliner and Patrick Feaster, "Letters to the Editor: Rethinking Edison's Discovery of the Phonograph Principle," ''ARSC Journal'' 38:2 (Fall 2007), 226–228.</ref> His first experiments were with waxed paper.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dubey |first1=N. B. |title=Office Management: Developing Skills for Smooth Functioning |date=2009 |page=139 |publisher=Global India Publications |isbn=9789380228167 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3aiA1URwOXIC&q=phonograph+cylinders&pg=PA139 |access-date=22 March 2019 |archive-date=15 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415221912/https://books.google.com/books?id=3aiA1URwOXIC&q=phonograph+cylinders&pg=PA139 |url-status=live }}</ref> He announced his invention of the first ''phonograph'', a device for recording and replaying sound, on November 21, 1877 (early reports appear in ''[[Scientific American]]'' and several newspapers in the beginning of November, and an even earlier announcement of Edison working on a "talking-machine" can be found in the ''[[Chicago Daily Tribune]]'' on May 9<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84031492/1877-05-09/ed-1/. |title=Chicago Sunday tribune. |newspaper=[[Chicago Daily Tribune]] |date=9 May 1877}}</ref>), and he demonstrated the device for the first time on November 29 (it was [[patent]]ed on February 19, 1878, as US Patent 200,521). "In December, 1877, a young man came into the office of the ''Scientific American'', and placed before the editors a small, simple machine about which few preliminary remarks were offered. The visitor without any ceremony whatever turned the crank, and to the astonishment of all present the machine said: 'Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph?' The machine thus spoke for itself, and made known the fact that it was the phonograph..."<ref>{{cite news |work=[[Scientific American]] |date=July 25, 1896 |url=http://www.machine-history.com/The%20Phonograph.%201877%20thru%201896 |title=The Phonograph, 1877 thru 1896 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091202084044/http://www.machine-history.com/The%20Phonograph.%201877%20thru%201896 |archive-date=2009-12-02 }}</ref>[[File:Amberola close-up.jpg|thumb|Close up of the mechanism of an Edison Amberola, {{Circa|1915}}|alt=]]The music critic [[Herman Klein]] attended an early demonstration (1881–82) of a similar machine. On the early phonograph's reproductive capabilities he wrote in retrospect: "It sounded to my ear like someone singing about half a mile away, or talking at the other end of a big hall; but the effect was rather pleasant, save for a peculiar nasal quality wholly due to the mechanism, although there was little of the scratching that later was a prominent feature of the flat disc. Recording for that primitive machine was a comparatively simple matter. I had to keep my mouth about six inches away from the horn and remember not to make my voice too loud if I wanted anything approximating to a clear reproduction; that was all. When it was played over to me and I heard my own voice for the first time, one or two friends who were present said that it sounded rather like mine; others declared that they would never have recognised it. I daresay both opinions were correct."<ref name="klein">{{cite book |last=Klein |first=Herman |editor=William R. Moran |title=Herman Klein and The Gramophone |year=1990 |publisher=[[Amadeus Press]] |isbn=0-931340-18-7 |page=380 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/hermankleingram00klei/page/380 }}</ref>

''[[The Argus (Melbourne)|The Argus]]'' newspaper from Melbourne, Australia, reported on an 1878 demonstration at the [[Royal Society of Victoria]], writing "There was a large attendance of ladies and gentlemen, who appeared greatly interested in the various scientific instruments exhibited. Among these the most interesting, perhaps, was the trial made by Mr. Sutherland with the phonograph, which was most amusing. Several trials were made, and were all more or less successful. 'Rule Britannia' was distinctly repeated, but great laughter was caused by the repetition of the convivial song of 'He's a jolly good fellow,' which sounded as if it was being sung by an old man of 80 with a cracked voice."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5943561 |title=The Royal Society. |newspaper=[[The Argus (Melbourne)|The Argus]] |issue=10,030 |location=[[Melbourne]], [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]] |date=9 August 1878 |accessdate=26 June 2021 |page=10 |via=[[National Library of Australia]] |archive-date=21 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220221114841/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/5943561 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Early machines===
[[File:Edison phonograph 1912.jpg|thumb|upright|Phonograph cabinet built with [[Edison Portland Cement Company|Edison cement]], 1912. The clockwork portion of the phonograph is concealed in the base beneath the statue; the amplifying horn is the shell behind the human figure.|alt=|left]]
Edison's early phonographs recorded onto a thin sheet of metal, normally [[Tin#Applications|tinfoil]], which was temporarily wrapped around a [[helix|helically]] grooved [[cylinder (geometry)|cylinder]] mounted on a correspondingly [[threaded rod]] supported by plain and threaded [[Bearing (mechanical)|bearings]]. While the cylinder was rotated and slowly progressed along its [[axis of rotation|axis]], the airborne [[sound]] vibrated a [[diaphragm (acoustics)|diaphragm]] connected to a stylus that indented the foil into the cylinder's groove, thereby recording the vibrations as "hill-and-dale" variations of the depth of the indentation.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/articles-and-essays/history-of-edison-sound-recordings/history-of-the-cylinder-phonograph/ |title=Article about Edison and the invention of the phonograph |publisher=Memory.loc.gov |access-date=2016-08-15 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160819131636/https://www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/articles-and-essays/history-of-edison-sound-recordings/history-of-the-cylinder-phonograph/ |archive-date=2016-08-19 }}</ref>

===Introduction of the disc record===
{{Listen
| filename     = Advertising Record.ogg
| title        = {{center|"I Am The Edison Phonograph"}}
| description  = This 1906 recording (with the character being voiced by [[Len Spencer]]) enticed store customers with the wonders of the invention.<br />2 minutes, 23 seconds.
| format       = [[Ogg]]
}}

By 1890, record manufacturers had begun using a rudimentary duplication process to mass-produce their product. While the live performers recorded the master phonograph, up to ten tubes led to blank cylinders in other phonographs. Until this development, each record had to be custom-made. Before long, a more advanced [[pantograph]]-based process made it possible to simultaneously produce 90–150 copies of each record. However, as demand for certain records grew, popular artists still needed to re-record and re-re-record their songs. Reportedly, the medium's first major African-American star [[George W. Johnson (singer)|George Washington Johnson]] was obliged to perform his "[[The Laughing Song]]" (or the separate "The Whistling Coon")<ref>University of California. [http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?query=lAUGHING+COON&queryType=%40attr+1%3D1016 Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project: George W. Washington] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629024714/http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?query=lAUGHING+COON&queryType=@attr+1=1016 |date=2011-06-29 }}, Department of Special Collections, Donald C. Davidson Library, University of California at Santa Barbara.</ref> up to thousands of times in a studio during his recording career. Sometimes he would sing "The Laughing Song" more than fifty times in a day, at twenty cents per rendition. (The average price of a single cylinder in the mid-1890s was about fifty cents.){{citation needed|date=June 2022}}

=== Oldest surviving recordings ===
[[File:Early phonograph, Deaf Smith County Museum, Hereford, TX IMG 4857.JPG|thumb|Early phonograph at Deaf Smith County Historical Museum in [[Hereford, Texas|Hereford]], [[Texas]]|alt=]]
[[Frank Lambert (inventor)|Lambert]]'s [[lead]] cylinder recording for an experimental talking clock is often identified as the oldest surviving playable sound recording,<ref>[http://www.tinfoil.com/cm-0101.htm "Experimental Talking Clock"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070219131721/http://www.tinfoil.com/cm-0101.htm |date=2007-02-19 }} recording at Tinfoil.com, URL accessed August 14, 2006</ref>
although the evidence advanced for its early date is controversial.<ref>Aaron Cramer, Tim Fabrizio, and George Paul, "A Dialogue on 'The Oldest Playable Recording,'" ''ARSC Journal'' 33:1 (Spring 2002), 77–84; Patrick Feaster and Stephan Puille, "Dialogue on 'The Oldest Playable Recording' (continued), ''ARSC Journal'' 33:2 (Fall 2002), 237–242.</ref>
Wax [[phonograph cylinder]] recordings of [[Handel]]'s choral music made on June 29, 1888, at [[The Crystal Palace]] in London were thought to be the oldest-known surviving musical recordings,<ref>[http://www.nps.gov/edis/photosmultimedia/very-early-recorded-sound.htm "Very Early Recorded Sound"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140228135836/http://www.nps.gov/edis/photosmultimedia/very-early-recorded-sound.htm |date=2014-02-28 }} U.S. [[National Park Service]], URL accessed August 14, 2006</ref> until the recent playback by a group of American historians of a [[phonautograph]] recording<!-- "waveform" refers to an individual cycle of the fundamental or dominant frequency and is not a valid alternative for editors allergic to calling a phonautogram "a recording" --> of ''[[Au clair de la lune]]''<!-- words in French titles not capitalized as in English --> recorded on April 9, 1860.<ref>{{cite news |last=Rosen |first=Jody |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/arts/27soun.html |title=Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=2008-03-27 |access-date=2011-10-12 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110903192854/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/arts/27soun.html |archive-date=2011-09-03 }}</ref>

The 1860 phonautogram had not until then been played, as it was only a transcription of sound waves into graphic form on paper for visual study. Recently developed optical scanning and image processing techniques have given new life to early recordings by making it possible to play unusually delicate or physically unplayable media without physical contact.<ref>{{cite news|last=Eichler|first=Jeremy|title=Technology saves echoes of past from silence|url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2014/04/05/pushing-back-silence-new-technology-and-battle-save-old-recordings/8ccQ3EPHdc7TI6GnxK8QtM/story.html|access-date=7 April 2014|newspaper=The Boston Globe|date=6 April 2014|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407233314/http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2014/04/05/pushing-back-silence-new-technology-and-battle-save-old-recordings/8ccQ3EPHdc7TI6GnxK8QtM/story.html|archive-date=7 April 2014}}</ref>

A recording made on a sheet of tinfoil at an 1878 demonstration of Edison's phonograph in St. Louis, Missouri, has been played back by optical scanning and digital analysis. A few other early tinfoil recordings are known to survive, including a slightly earlier one that is believed to preserve the voice of U.S. President [[Rutherford B. Hayes]], but as of May 2014 they have not yet been scanned.{{clarify|reason=Update needed as of 2022|date=April 2022}} These antique tinfoil recordings, which have typically been stored folded, are too fragile to be played back with a stylus without seriously damaging them. Edison's 1877 tinfoil recording of ''Mary Had a Little Lamb'', not preserved, has been called the first instance of [[audiobook|recorded verse]]<!-- ignores 1860 phonautograph recording of some lines from "Aminta" -->.<ref name=rubery>{{cite book |title=Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies |editor=Matthew Rubery |year=2011 |chapter=Introduction |pages=1–21 |isbn=978-0-415-88352-8 |publisher=Routledge }}</ref>

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the phonograph, Edison recounted reciting ''Mary Had a Little Lamb'' to test his first machine. The 1927 event was filmed by an early [[sound-on-film]] [[newsreel]] camera, and an audio clip from that film's soundtrack is sometimes mistakenly presented as the original 1877 recording.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/EDIS-SCD-02|title=Mary had a little lamb|last=Thomas Edison|date=30 November 1926|via=Internet Archive|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161003222147/https://archive.org/details/EDIS-SCD-02|archive-date=2016-10-03}}</ref>
Wax cylinder recordings made by 19th-century media legends such as [[P. T. Barnum]] and Shakespearean actor [[Edwin Booth]] are amongst the earliest verified recordings by the famous that have survived to the present.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/PersonalSpeechToTheFutureByP.T.Barnum1890 ''Personal Speech To The Future By P. T. Barnum'' recorded 1890] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160329162559/https://archive.org/details/PersonalSpeechToTheFutureByP.T.Barnum1890 |date=2016-03-29 }}; from [https://archive.org/ archive.org] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131231032705/https://archive.org/ |date=2013-12-31 }} Retrieved July 21, 2015</ref><ref>[https://archive.org/details/OthelloByEdwinBooth1890 ''Othello By Edwin Booth 1890'' recorded 1890] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160116142815/https://archive.org/details/OthelloByEdwinBooth1890 |date=2016-01-16 }} from [https://archive.org/ archive.org] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131231032705/https://archive.org/ |date=2013-12-31 }} Retrieved July 21, 2015</ref>