A week ago today, I went to visit Edison's Historic site with a group of engineers and discovered a hidden jewel that has been well preserved.
Edison invented the phonograph and had record plant.
According tho the NPS.gov website under "The Recording Archives" it states that
"The archive at Thomas Edison National Historical Site includes approximately 48,000 disc and cylinder records produced by Edison in West Orange, New Jersey, between 1888 and 1929. Many of these, including unreleased and experimental recordings, have been at the Laboratory since Edison's lifetime. Some of the earliest examples of recorded sound in existence are preserved within this unique collection.
The subject matter of the recordings is mostly music, covering genres popular in the United States during Edison's era. Spoken word recordings include vaudeville comedy sketches, documentary speeches, educational lessons, and motion picture dialogue soundtracks. Experimental recordings document research carried out at the Edison Laboratory to develop recorded sound technology."
They have compiled a selection of sound files in the MP3 format from the archive and arranged them by genre.
Selected from the genres recorded by Edison:
Brass Band Marches
Classical Instrumental
Comedy Sketches
Country & Anglo-American Folk Songs
Documentary Recordings and Political Speeches
Educational Lessons
Experimental Recordings
Jazz, Blues & Dance Bands
Motion Picture Soundtracks & Actor Auditions
Music of Foreign Countries
Negro Spirituals
Opera, Vocal, & Choral
Poetry, Short Stories, Readings
Popular Instrumental, Ragtime
Popular Songs, Tin Pan Alley
Very Early Recorded Sound"
We toured his first floor machine shop, the precision shop, the drafting room, and the chemistry shop. Edison worked on electric car batteries in the early 1900s? He thought it would be the car of the future.
