Lauste, Ernst Ruhmer's "Singing" Arc: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This is a "singing" arc lamp designed by Ernst Ruhmer for recording sound waves and utilized by Eugene Augustin Lauste in his experiments with sound on film technology. The apparatus is mounted on a metal stand with gears used to adjust carriage on which arc lamp is mounted at an angle. Wires are covered in black glass beads.

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: 1900s
• maker: Ruhmer, Ernst
• modifier: Lauste, Eugene Augustin
• Object Name: Ernst Ruhmer'S "Singing" Arc
• Object Name: electric lighting
• Object Name: electric lamp
• Object Type: electric lighting
• Physical Description: handmade (overall production method/technique)
• Physical Description: metal (overall material)
• Physical Description: glass (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 9 in x 13 in x 4 1/2 in; 22.86 cm x 33.02 cm x 11.43 cm
• Place Made: Germany
• Subject: Motion Pictures
• ID Number: PG.4046.32
• catalog number: 4046.32
• 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.