PhonoMultimedia

Multimedia Creations from Images and Recorded Sound

 

PhonoMultimedia are examples of recorded sound that have been combined with different types of images - magic lantern slides, postcards, book illustrations, artwork, pictures captured on film, video tape, computers, etc.

Magic Lantern Shows with period phonograph recordings have been created for this gallery as examples of what could have been seen and heard by audiences at the turn of the twentieth century.

Early Moving Pictures, including some AI colorized, can be watched with added early phonograph recordings.

Talking Books in this gallery include all recorded books. This gallery has also created some multimedia presentations using records which were not originally a "talking book" (e.g., Cal Stewart records have been combined with respective Uncle Josh's Punkin Centre Stories, 1905).

Other PhonoMultimedia Presentations are created using art, postcards, sheet music and other ephemera which are accompanied by a variety of recorded words and music.

PBS Phonograph, Kinetoscope and related Videos by PBS, American Experience, etc. are linked to respective previews and excerpts.

Movie and Cartoon Clips with phonograph connections can be viewed by visiting The Phonograph in the Movies for list of movies and cartoons.

Miscellaneous PhonoMultimedia - None of the above.

 

Select a PhonoMultimedia presentation from below or use the PhonoMultimedia Table of Contents.

 

Magic Lantern Shows

In the early 1890's the Phonograph and the magic lantern provided multi-media entertainment to paying audiences. The following have been recreated using magic lantern slides accompanied by cylinder phonograph records.

 

Adventures of a Cyclist accompanied by Ye Ancients March, The Edison Concert Band, Record No. 8946 (1905)

Adventures of Mr. Snapshot accompanied by American Students' Walzes, Edison Record No. 8740 (1904)

America accompanied by The Star Spangled Banner and America, Indestructible Record No. 3943 (1908)

 

Annie's Treat accompanied by an 1896 Regina music box playing The Nightingale Song.
         

Are Mr. and Mrs. Snapshot at Home? accompanied by brown wax cylinder recording of Nanon Waltz, circa 1891-1893.

Break the News to Mother accompanied by J.W. Myers singing Break the News to Mother, Columbia Records.

A Christmas Carol accompanied by “The Carol Singers” performing "God rest you, merry gentlemen" on Edison Blue Amberol Record No. 3346 (1917)

  

The Cyclists' Elopement accompanied by Peaceful Henry played by The Edison Concert Band (1903). Additional details HERE
   

Killarney accompanied by Miss Marie Narelle singing Killarney. See Edison Record No. 9081 for additional Narelle details.

Nursery Rhymes illustrated by W. Butcher & Sons London (ca. 1910) accompanied by Thousand-and-One Nights Waltz played by the Edison Concert Band (1908)

   
   
             

 

 

Early Moving Pictures and Phonograph Recordings

 

Snowball Fight in Lyon, France 1897 - accompanied by Snow Queen performed by the Indestructible Military Band (1909). Additional details HERE.

  

Workers Exit the Lumière Factory in Lyon, France 1895 accompanied by Everybody Works But Father sung by Bob Roberts, Edison Records (1905).


  

Geraldine Farrar as Marguerite singing "The Jewel Song" in The World and Its Woman, 1919 film accompanied by Farrar's 1913 Victor Record No. 88147 of Marguerite's aria the "Jewel Song" from Gounod's Faust

  

See and hear the original Edison Kinetophonographic movie that combined sound and film made by W.K.L. Dickson c.1894/1895. (Library of Congress)
             

W.K.L. Dickson Greets Friends of the Phonograph - William Dickson moving hat from one hand to another, Edison Studio, May 1891 Courtesy Library of Congress

            
             

 

 

Talking Books

The creation of some talking books for this gallery (e.g., using Cal Stewart records and pages from his book Uncle Josh's Punkin Centre Stories, 1905) illustrates how storytelling on records was not always a word for word rendition (most often because of the medium, i.e., the recording time limitation of cylinder and disc records). The Talking Book Corporation, however, created early examples of stories "narrated" word for word with the text printed.
 

Uncle Josh and the Lightning Rod Agent - Uncle Josh's encounter with a Lightning Rod Agent from his 1905 book Uncle Josh's Punkin Centre Stories by Cal Stewart, "The Talking Machine Story Teller."

  
Uncle Josh on a Bicycle - Uncle Josh's rides a bicycle for the first time from his 1905 book Uncle Josh's Punkin Centre Stories by Cal Stewart, "The Talking Machine Story Teller."		  

Submarine Attack "Talking" Book, The Talking Book Corporation, Emerson Records, 1919.

  

For examples of Talking Books and Edison's 1878 prediction of phonograph books as one of its 'probabilities' see Edison's The Phonograph and Its Future: Phonographic Books.
             

 

 

Other PhonoMultimedia

 

Happy Birthday Song for Friends of the Phonograph a.k.a. The Anniversary of your Birth Song

  

Happy New Year - Auld Lang Syne - Phonograph ephemera accompanied by Auld Lang Syne performed by the Mediaeval Baebes, 2014

  


Hello or Ahoy? - "Halloo!" "Hello" and Edison
  

Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Easter and the Phonograph - Phonograph Easter postcards accompanied by Gene Autry singing Here Comes Peter Cottontail, 1950
             


The Phonograph and Santa - An excerpt from Edison’s 1905 moving picture “The Night Before Christmas” accompanied by Gene Autry’s 1953 record “Up on the Housetop.”

 

Ring Out the Bells for Christmas - Edison Record No. 9806 (1907) and phonograph ephemera.

  

The Song of Mr. Phonograph - 2016 original version by ©Nick Jester and ©2020 Phonographia

  

A Christmas Carol - illustrations from "A Christmas Carol" print editions (1844–1915) and the recording of “The Awakening of Scrooge” on Edison Amberol Record No. 12378 (1911) performed by Bransby Williams as Ebenezer Scrooge as he awakens on Christmas Day.
             

Party Line - A Customer Service skills training film by Western Electric Company and the Bell Telephone System (in the era of teenagers and the phonograph.

            
             

 

PBS Phonograph, Kinetoscope and Related Videos

Edison: From the Telephone and Telegraph Comes the Phonograph - An American Experience video

Discover how one invention led to another when Thomas Edison and his Menlo Park laboratory team refined Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone and, along the way, invented the phonograph, a device, said the New York Times, destined to "entirely eclipse" the telephone.(1)

 

The Phonograph - An American Experience PBS video

On December 7, 1877 Thomas Edison demonstrated his phonograph at the New York City offices of the nation’s leading technical weekly publication, “Scientific American.” This video features that event and the fame it brought to Edison (2:14 excerpted from the 2015 PBS American Experience “Edison.”)

 

The Kinetoscope - An American Experience PBS video

In the 1890s, Thomas Edison worked with his assistant and part-time photographer, William Dickson to create a motion picture camera. They created a series of short films that could be viewed on a coin-operated, peephole viewing cabinet called a kinetoscope. (3 minutes 32 seconds from 2015 PBS American Experience).

  

Fitness, Flappers and Phonograph Records - PBS History Detectives

For the story of Wallace Rogerson's exercise records being investigated as the first of records of its kind host Tukufu Zuberi tells the story to Wallace's granddaughter. (Aired on 9/5/2011 | 18m 3s.)

 
             

 

 

Miscellaneous PhonoMultimedia

The Moment the Guns Fell Silent - WW1 Armistice Interpretation (Sound Installation) by Coda to Coda, 2018

Phono=Record Phono=Postcards - Novelty postcards marketed in 1905 which played records.

The Sneeze - Filmed on January 7, 1894 (Kinetoscopic Record from Library of Congress and film)

Talking Photos "Speak for Themselves"

Uncle Sam and Kaiser Bill - Motion toy phonograph attachment, National Toy Co., 1919

 


Edison Kinetoscope Parlor 1896, The Phonoscope



The Vitascope, The Phonoscope, November 1896

 

"What the Phonograph is to the ear, the Vitascope is to the eye. The camera records the view, the Phonograph bottles up the sound, and the Vitascope preserves the action for future use..."

Our Correspondents, The Phonoscope, November 1896

 

"There's Money in a good Magic Lantern outfit," Munsey's Magazine, advertising section, Vol. 16, p. 861, 1896,

 

 

 

Edison offered lantern slides of his "Old Couple" decalcomania to Edison Dealers, especially designed for use at moving picture shows, magic lantern exhibitions, etc., at a price of 35c each in plain black and white, or 90c in colors. Edison Phonograph Monthly, February 1910.

 

Munsey's Magazine, April 1901 (quarter page ad, The Collection of Phonographia) (PM-1827)

 

The Pathéscope - "The Companion Entertainer to the Talking Machine," The Talking Machine World, February 1915

 

 

Additional Information about the Snowball Fight in Lyon, France 1897 - This Lumière brothers film has been upscaled, colorized with AI added frames to enhance smoothness and facial expressions. This Phonographia version has used that version and accompanied it with Snow Queen performed by the Indestructible Military Band (1909)

 

The Phonoscope, February 1898

The Phonoscope for February 1898 in their section New Films for "Screen Machines" announced that "Macguire & Baucus" was marketing "SNOW BALLING." According to The Thomas A. Edison Papers the Macguire & Baucus "company entered the motion picture business in 1894. During the period August-October 1894 it acquired the exclusive rights to sell and exhibit Edison's kinetoscopes and kinetoscope films in Europe, Mexico and South America, the West Indies, Australia, Burma, Ceylon, and India." "On December 7, 1897, Edison brought suit against the company for infringement of his motion picture patents."

In that same edition of The Phonoscope an article with pictures featured the London office of Macquire & Baucus, Ltd. noting they "have long been sole agents for Great Britain, her colonies and the United States for the Lumiere photographic films, perforated to American (standard) gauge. As every well-informed exhibitor knows, these Lumiere films are justly celebrated."

 

The Cyclists' Elopement - A Magic Lantern Presentation illustrated by Bamforth & Co., (1897) accompanied by Peaceful Henry played by The Edison Concert Band, Edison Gold Moulded Record No. 8562 (1903).

 

Peaceful Henry - Edison Record No. 8562 Release Notes:The Edison Phonograph Monthly 1903; Sheet Music, Dealer Program

A similiar 8-panel cartoon titled "On the Wrong Tack - A Story of a Bicycle Elopement and How it Succeeded" by F. M. Howarth was in an 1894 Puck magazine.

Panel 1 from "On the Wrong Tack, Puck, 1894.

Another 12-panel elopement cartoon titled "A Blessing in Disguise - The Story of a Successful Bicycle Elopement" by F. M. Howarth was in an 1898 Puck magazine.

 

Panel 2 from "A Blessing in Disguise, Puck, 1898