![]() Of things phonographs and recorded sounds were. Secondly, this dissertation argues that the search for a profitable business model also enlisted phonograph entrepreneurs and the public in a project of determining exactly what kind It is also one of motors, batteries and hand-cranks and it involves production and distribution no less than consumption and meaning- making. The story of twentieth century music is not only one of race, class, gender, taste, capitalism and consumption. “Vox Machinae” argues, first, that each of these business models was an historical artifact produced by a give-and-take between phonograph entrepreneurs, the public and sometimes-intransigent material things. Following an examination of the nickel-in-slot phonograph parlors of the 1890s it explores the technology’s evolution as a form of “home entertainment” in the twentieth century. It begins with the technology’s origins as a staged spectacle in the 1870s before detailing its application to office work in the 1880s and 1890s. ![]() “Vox Machinae” draws on business records, newspapers, trade journals and advertisements to detail the first five decades of the business of sound recording. But as Edison and his financial backers discovered, making money from sound recording was no easy task. The scientific community and the general public hailed Edison’s invention as a wonder of the age and speculated endlessly on the practical applications to which it would soon be put. AbstractIn late 1877 Thomas Edison cobbled together a crude mechanism of metal and wood he called the “phonograph,” a device capable of mechanically reproducing sounds as varied as speech and birdsong.
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