phonograph cylinder and box: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This is an experimental sound recording made on November 14,1889. William J. Hammer, who had managed Thomas Edison’s phonograph display at the Paris World’s Fair that year, recorded it to accompany a free balloon ride he took when the fair ended.

During the ride, Hammer reportedly dropped a dozen sealed boxes with recordings attached to parachutes. He imagined this technique could be used for military surveillance: “an officer making observations from a military balloon could dictate such observations to a small phonograph attached to his side.” In fact, Edison had just completed a miniature instrument he called “the military phonograph."

This is one of those records, which may have been recorded at the moment of launch. It is smaller than the standard record size and comes with a custom box, roughly a three-inch cube. On the box, one inscription reads “Sent from my free balloon November 14, 1889 Paris from W.J.H,” and another instructs if found, please return to William J. Hammer at the address of his Paris hotel.

There is a very large crack in this cylinder, so it was a challenge to recover sound from it. A rough transcript:

“…an Edison phonograph […] American industrial nation, Paris Exposition 1889. Are you ready? Do not go yet. Bonjour, messieurs et mesdames. […] Into the […] phonograph […] everybody on the ropes. Lift off! […]”

Download link, Interplanetary File System (IPFS) content identifier (CID): https://w3s.link/ipfs/bafybeic6cdwczr4f33lwyyax4rtz6hl7zgyoyu65iiitmkt3qkcpvzghyy

Stephens CE. “Speculative Imaginations”: Listening to 1889, Then and Now. The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. 2023;22(4):452-474. doi:10.1017/S1537781423000245

Materials, dates and provenance

• Object Name: phonograph cylinder
• Object Name: phonograph cylinder and box
• Measurements: overall, cylinder: 1 1/2 in x 2 1/4 in; 3.81 cm x 5.715 cm
• Measurements: overall, box: 2 7/8 in x 2 3/4 in x 1 3/4 in; 7.3025 cm x 6.985 cm x 4.445 cm
• ID Number: ME.320554
• accession number: 241402
• catalog number: 320554
• Credit Line: International Business Machines Corporation
• 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.