Updated 3/7/10. (See What's New.)
The history of sound recording began with a sheet of tinfoil and a brief nursery rhyme ("Mary had a little lamb..."). Edison invented the first phonograph in December, 1877, creating an instant sensation -- but a brief one. Once the initial public curiosity was satisfied the technology languished for almost a decade. The machines below are original artifacts of the earliest days of the phonograph.
(Original tinfoil phonographs came in a variety of sizes.)
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