(Lauste) Ernst Ruhmer Photographophone.: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This is a photographophone sound recording device made by Ernst Ruhmer and used by Eugene Augustin Lauste in his experiments with recording optical soundtracks on film. The Photographophone is a wood box with a hinged lid, two round aperatures on bottom face and a square aperature on each of its two opposite long sides. The interior of the box is painted black and contains brass fixtures, two brass film spools and two cloth covered wires which attach to screw-terminals extruding from the right short side of the box. One of these terminals is attached to a metal piece outside of the box; the other appears to be missing this piece. A Bell Labs tag attached to the object reads "Ruhmer Photographophone Bought by Mr. Lauste in 1908" and notes that the piece appears in Bell Labs Photograph No. 41,232.

The PHC’s Early Sound Cinema Collection [COLL.PHOTOS.000040] includes the unit’s holdings of apparatus, film and other media related to the history of matching recorded sound to projected motion pictures. The collection includes over 50 pieces of apparatus related to Eugene Augustin Lauste’s experiments with sound-on-film technology. Lauste, a pioneering motion picture engineer, used selenium cells to record playable soundtracks alongside images on film in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Lauste failed to find commercial success with his inventions, and Bell Laboratories bought the rights to Lauste’s work and collections for patent litigation use before donating the materials to the Smithsonian in the 1930s. The collection also includes several pieces of apparatus used to record and project motion pictures with sound before the process became an industry standard, two short lengths of film used to demonstrate early processes and a film of a lecture on the history of sound experiments from 1922.

This collection is one in a series documenting the PHC’s Early Cinema Collection [COLL.PHOTOS.000018]. The cinema-related objects cover the range of technological innovation and popular appeal that defined the motion picture industry during a period in which it became the premier form of mass communication in American life, roughly 1885-1930. See also finding aids for Early Cinema Equipment [COLL.PHOTOS.000037], Early Color Cinema [COLL.PHOTOS.000039], Early Cinema Film and Ephemera [COLL.PHOTOS.000038], and the Gatewood Dunston Collection [COLL.PHOTOS.000021].

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1908
• maker: Ruhmer, Ernst
• modifier: Lauste, Eugene Augustin
• Object Name: Photographophone (Ernst Ruhmer )
• Object Name: sound recorder
• Object Name: sound recording apparatus
• Physical Description: handmade (overall production method/technique)
• Physical Description: wood; metal; cloth (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 7.9 cm x 38.8 cm x 20.6 cm; 3 1/8 in x 15 1/4 in x 8 1/8 in
• place made: Germany
• Subject: Motion Pictures
• ID Number: PG.4046.31
• catalog number: 4046.31
• accession number: 129430
• Credit Line: Bell Telephone Laboratories
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.