Text into Sound
The wax cylinders used with phonographs were initially blank. Owners used the machine to record their own or others’ voices. Despite Edison’s objections (he wanted people to exercise creativity by making their own recordings), commercial recordings quickly commanded large audiences and became the source of most phonographic listening.
Arthur A. Allen. American Bird Biographies. George Miksch Sutton, illus. Ithaca, N.Y.: Comstock Publishing Company, Inc. [c1934].
“The Meadowlark” and “The Tanager’s Story.” American Bird Biographies LPs. New York: American Printing House for the Blind, ca. 1942. Peter Paul Kellogg Papers, 21-18-893.
Recorded music was an early and dominant product sold in record album format, but recorded stories for children also appeared, along with novels and other literary forms for adults. Two examples of these kinds of records are shown here, both of which feature the author reading his own work. Oneexample -- a recording of E.B. White reading his classic children’s novel, Charlotte’s Web -- features the recognizable cover art of the book, by illustrator Garth Williams. While fiction may be the more common form of literature recorded, poetry also appears, as seen with this album of Langston Hughes reading his poems. The album is shown alongside the volume of poetry that preceded it, with illustrations by Helen Sewell.
Recording of Charlotte’s Web. Cambridge, MA: Pathways of Sound, 1952. E.B. White Collection, 4619.
The Dream Keeper and Other Poems , read by Langston Hughes. New York: Folkways Records, 1955. African American Civil Rights and Literary Sound Recordings, 8488.
Langston Hughes, The Dream Keeper and Other Poems. New York: Knopf, 1932.
Once recording technology and playback devices moved beyond the record player, other options emerged, such as recording speeches or interviews on tape. A variety of forms of tape recordings emerged as technology evolved.Shown here is a reel recording of an interview E.B. White did with the Cornell Daily Sun.
Magnetic tape recording, interview of E.B. White by Susan Frank for the Cornell Daily Sun, 1964. E.B. White Collection, 4619.