A Cool Museum Exhibit I’ve Got to See: “Hear My Voice: Alexander Graham Bell and the Origins of Recorded Sound”
I’ve always been fascinated by the science that goes into making, recording and distributing rock’n’roll, which is how I ended up helping to create a touring museum exhibit called The Science of Rock’n’Roll, which has appeared in a number of science centres across North America. Assembling the material was hard but very rewarding work. Now I’ve got to head to this new exhibit at The National Museum of American History in DC to learn more about Alexander Graham Bell and his contributions to sound recording. (Thanks to Michael for the link.)
Alexander Graham Bell is best remembered as the inventor of the telephone, but he and his associates were also instrumental in the development of sound recording at his Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C. In this exhibiton, see documents, recordings, laboratory notes, and apparatus from the Volta Laboratory dating from the 1880s; learn about the early history of sound recording in the United States; and hear some of the earliest sound recordings ever made. The recordings are made audible through a 21st century sound recovery technique developed by Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory staff in partnership with the Library of Congress and the Museum.