Have you considered what life would be like without the ability to record and playback sound? No watching movies or TV at home. No listening to music or podcasts while going about your daily tasks. No way to simply listen to your favorite tune on repeat, capture a loved one’s voice who has passed or engage with sounds only available in the far reaches of the globe. Life would be fundamentally altered without this ubiquitous, and oft taken for granted, technology. Sound recordings are an indispensable record of the human experience in that they document the sights and sounds of everyday life that have evolved or even disappeared in the interim.
All human beings lacked this ability prior to one hundred and fifty years ago. The first time a sound was recorded and played back occurred in 1877 on a tinfoil phonograph invented by Thomas Edison. And from this invention, eventually sprang the wax cylinder, the centerpiece of the Cylinder Audio Archive at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The wax cylinder played an indispensable role in the development of sound technology, thus providing an essential steppingstone to the accessibility of sound recordings today. It was a precursor to MP3s, CDs, cassettes, and vinyl records. Originally intended to record dictation, it quickly became the preferred technology for listening to vaudeville sketches, comic monologues, historical speeches and, much like today, to popular music.
For a chronological history of the development cylinder recording technology, visit the detailed history provide here.
A cylinder made from Edison’s Brown Wax, which is actually made of a metal soap (photo credit: Anna-Maria Manuel).
A “suitcase” phonograph made for general household use that played cylinder recordings that lasted for two minutes
Watch a demonstration of how to record and playback a wax cylinder recording on a 1903 Edison Phonograph here.
The UCSB library, with funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Grammy Foundation, and other donors, created more than 10,000 cylinder recordings. You can download or stream them online for free. The curators at the UCSB Special Research Collections have assembled a playlist of recordings such as historical speeches, Early Black Artists and Composers, Mexican Cylinders: Of National Identity and Sound recordings and Early Hillbilly & Old Time Music. You can also browse by genre. To learn more about the process of creating this archive, visit the about section on the UCSB Cylinder Archive webpage.
Want to take a deeper dive?
Wax Cylinders used in talking dolls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTWaAM_FqlU
History of Cylinder Records: Early Wax Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS-3bqTCgcM
History of Cylinder Records: Early Wax Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrqAP2_OEXc
History of Cylinder Records: Part 3 Four Minute Cylinders
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9clYq1nwh3w
History of Cylinder Records: Part 4 Celluloid Cylinders
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABs-m6qPZO0
History of Cylinder Records: Part 5 Concert Grand HB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21M4jb5bkPo