A Complete Manual Of The Edison Phonograph

A Complete Manual of the Edison Phonograph By George E. Tewksbury With Introduction By Thomas A. Edison The preparation of this modest work has been undertaken for two reasons. First, there is no guide to the standard Edison Phonograph as now manufactured in its perfected form. Mr. Andem's excellent book describes in graceful phrase the machine of several years ago, before the new shaving device and other changes had been adopted, and before the day of the spring motor. The instrument has since been perfected, and the field of its usefulness broadened. Improvements in motors, batteries, speakers, the use of special glasses, and the advent of many new devices, daily suggest questions which had not then arisen. The art of record making likewise has advanced, and more inquirers, amateur and professional, want to know about this fascinating employment. The attempt, therefore, is made to give practical directions in plain language as to various operations which an every-day experience of nine years has suggested or invited, and which are the subject of constant inquiry, particularly from beginners, such as adjusting the tension of the twin-nut spring, setting the diaphragm, the building-up of speakers, how to shave, the kinds and use of horns, the way to make records, the adjustment of sapphires, and other kindred subjects. Secondly, to save time, impossible as that may sound. For these pages have not been written in moments of idleness, but in the strife and stress of busy working-days, when sometimes the hours seemed too few for the daily task. To save time, then, by answering questions more faithfully than the hurry of a daily business mail would allow, when indeed many things could be touched upon not at all; to explain what obscure causes will produce simple results; to help where help is needed; and to make easier and more delightful that enjoyment which the great genius of Mr. Edison, and the work of his followers, has made possible. ..................................................................................................... The standard Edison Phonograph as now manufactured is made in two forms, known as the Electric Phonograph, or class M machine, and the Spring Motor Phonograph... CONTENTS Preface List of Illustrations Index of Phonograph Parts Introduction Types of Phonograph Phonograph Body Motor and Governor Operating the Machine Special Directions Index of Spring Motor Parts Edison Spring Motor Batteries Nickel-in-the-slot Phonographs Dictating and Transcribing Phonograph Cylinder Horns and Tubes Shaving of Cylinders Speakers and Glasses Index of Speaker Parts Record-making ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Windham Press is committed to bringing the lost cultural heritage of ages past into the 21st century through high-quality reproductions of original, classic printed works at affordable prices. This book has been carefully crafted to utilize the original images of antique books rather than error-prone OCR text. This also preserves the work of the original typesetters of these classics, unknown craftsmen who laid out the text, often by hand, of each and every page you will read. Their subtle art involving judgment and interaction with the text is in many ways superior and more human than the mechanical methods utilized today, and gave each book a unique, hand-crafted feel in its text that connected the reader organically to the art of bindery and book-making. We think these benefits are worth the occasional imperfection resulting from the age of these books at the time of scanning, and their vintage feel provides a connection to the past that goes beyond the mere words of the text.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edmund Morris comes a revelatory new biography of Thomas Alva Edison, the most prolific genius in American history. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews Although Thomas Alva Edison was the most famous American of his time, and remains an international name today, he is mostly remembered only for the gift of universal electric light. His invention of the first practical incandescent lamp 140 years ago so dazzled the world—already reeling from his invention of the phonograph and dozens of other revolutionary devices—that it cast a shadow over his later achievements. In all, this near-deaf genius (“I haven’t heard a bird sing since I was twelve years old”) patented 1,093 inventions, not including others, such as the X-ray fluoroscope, that he left unlicensed for the benefit of medicine. One of the achievements of this staggering new biography, the first major life of Edison in more than twenty years, is that it portrays the unknown Edison—the philosopher, the futurist, the chemist, the botanist, the wartime defense adviser, the founder of nearly 250 companies—as fully as it deconstructs the Edison of mythological memory. Edmund Morris, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, brings to the task all the interpretive acuity and literary elegance that distinguished his previous biographies of Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Ludwig van Beethoven. A trained musician, Morris is especially well equipped to recount Edison’s fifty-year obsession with recording technology and his pioneering advances in the synchronization of movies and sound. Morris sweeps aside conspiratorial theories positing an enmity between Edison and Nikola Tesla and presents proof of their mutually admiring, if wary, relationship. Enlightened by seven years of research among the five million pages of original documents preserved in Edison’s huge laboratory at West Orange, New Jersey, and privileged access to family papers still held in trust, Morris is also able to bring his subject to life on the page—the adored yet autocratic and often neglectful husband of two wives and father of six children. If the great man who emerges from it is less a sentimental hero than an overwhelming force of nature, driven onward by compulsive creativity, then Edison is at last getting his biographical due.

First Published in 2005. The Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound, 2nd edition, is an A to Z reference work covering the entire history of recorded sound from Edison discs to CDs and MP3. Entries range from technical terms (Acoustics; Back Tracking; Quadraphonic) to recording genres (blues, opera, spoken word) to histories of industry leaders and record labels to famed recording artists (focusing on their impact on recorded sound). Entries range in length from 25-word definitions of terms to 5000 word essays. Drawing on a panel of experts, the general editor has pulled together a wealth of information. The volume concludes with a complete reference bibliography and a deep index.

From the ragtime one-step of the early twentieth century to the contemporary practices of youth club cultures, popular dance and music are inextricably linked. This collection reveals the intimate connections between the corporeal and the sonic in the creation, transmission and reception of popular dance and music, which is imagined here as ’bodies of sound’. The volume provokes a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary conversation that includes scholarship from Asia, Europe and the United States, which explores topics from the nineteenth century through to the present day and engages with practices at local, national and transnational levels. In Part I: Constructing the Popular, the authors explore how categories of popular music and dance are constructed and de-stabilized, and their proclivity to appropriate and re-imagine cultural forms and meanings. In Part II: Authenticity, Revival and Reinvention, the authors examine how popular forms produce and manipulate identities and meanings through their attraction to and departure from cultural traditions. In Part III: (Re)Framing Value, the authors interrogate how values are inscribed, silenced, rearticulated and capitalized through popular music and dance. And in Part IV: Politics of the Popular, the authors read the popular as a site of political negotiation and transformation.