Smithsonian Science » National Museum of American History

Digital technology allows Alexander Graham Bell’s 1880s disc recordings to be played again

John Barrat — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:44:56 +0000

In the early 1880s, three inventors—Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter, collectively making up the Volta Laboratory Associates—brought together their creativity and expertise in a laboratory on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C., to record sound. In one experiment, Nov. 17, 1884, they recorded the word “barometer” on a glass disc with a beam of light. This disc and about 200 other experimental recordings from their laboratory were packed up for safekeeping, given to the Smithsonian and, with a few exceptions, never played again.

Image right: Alexander Graham Bell

In 2011, scholars from three institutions—National Museum of American History Curators Carlene Stephens and Shari Stout, Library of Congress Digital Conversion Specialist Peter Alyea and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Scientists Carl Haber and Earl Cornell—came together in a newly designed preservation laboratory at the Library of Congress to recover sound from those recordings made more than 100 years ago. Using high-resolution digital scans made from the original Volta discs, they were able to hear the word “barometer.”

The museum’s collection has about 400 of the earliest audio recordings ever made, including the 200 from Bell’s Volta lab. A reflection of the intense competition between Bell, Thomas Edison and Emile Berliner for patents following the invention of the phonograph by Edison in 1877, these recordings, along with supporting documents, were offered to the Smithsonian by each inventor in his lifetime.

“These recordings were made using a variety of methods and materials such as rubber, beeswax, glass, tin foil and brass, as the inventors tried to find a material that would hold sound,” said Stephens. “We don’t know what is recorded, except for a few cryptic inscriptions on some of the discs and cylinders or vague notes on old catalog cards written by a Smithsonian curator decades ago.”

Image left: Volta Laboratory recording made by Alexander Graham Bell, #287654-11. (Photo by Carl Haber, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

Now, through a collaborative project with the Library of Congress and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the mystery of what is on these recordings is being unraveled. To date, the team has successfully submitted six discs—all experimental recordings made by the Volta Laboratory Associates between 1881 and 1885—to the sound recovery process.

The recordings in the museum’s collection are in fragile condition due to their age and experimental nature. Until now, the technology to listen to the recordings without damaging the discs and cylinders was not available. The noninvasive optical technique used in this project to scan and recover sounds was first studied by Berkeley Lab in 2002–2004 and installed at the Library of Congress in 2006 and 2009. The process creates a high-resolution digital map of the disc or cylinder. This map is then processed to remove evidence of wear or damage (e.g., scratches and skips). Finally, software calculates the motion of a stylus moving through the disc or cylinder’s grooves, reproducing the audio content and producing a standard digital sound file. For more information, visit www.irene.lbl.gov.

Recovering sound from the six Volta discs is the first step in an ongoing project to preserve and catalog the museum’s early recording collection and to provide increased access to the collection and its contents for both the academic community and the public. The content of the recordings, studied in conjunction with the innovative nature of the physical discs and cylinders, provides insight into a variety of topics—from the invention process of these well-known 19th-century labs to speech patterns of the late 19th century.

Image right: Electrotyped copper negative disc of a sound recording, deposited at the Smithsonian in October 1881 and sealed in a tin box. Content: Tone; male voice saying: “One, two, three, four, five, six”; two more tones. Click this LINK to listen. (Photo by Brian Ireley)

This project has been made possible with funding from a variety of sources. The National Museum of American History received a special preservation grant from the Grammy Foundation and support from the museum’s Jackson Fund. The museum is looking for additional funding to continue the examination of other recordings in its exceptional collection. The Institute of Museum and Library Services provided funding to Berkeley Lab through a grant to further develop the optical scanning technology and bring it into use in support of collections and special projects around the world.

The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, holds nearly 147 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The Library serves the U.S. Congress and the nation both on-site in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill and through its award-winning website at www.loc.gov.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world’s most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab’s scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.

Siemens donates SOMATOM Emotion 6 CT scanner to National Museum of Natural History

John Barrat — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:31:00 +0000

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History has pioneered the use of CT scanning technology in noninvasive scientific research. Now, with the gift of a Siemens SOMATOM Emotion 6 CT scanner from Siemens Healthcare, Smithsonian researchers are acquiring information about museum objects that is fundamentally changing the way scientists examine specimens.

Image right: A color-enhanced image from a CT scan of a violin from the collection of the National Museum of American History that reveals the thickness of the wood of the violin’s front as well as past repairs.

“For more than a century scientists have pursued the mysteries of the natural world through the study of specimens in Smithsonian collections,” said Cristián Samper, director of the National Museum of Natural History. “The presence of the Siemens CT scanner in our anthropology department has revolutionized the way we look at everything from mummies and dinosaur fossils to the Smithsonian’s priceless collection of Stradivarius violins. This donation and its importance to Smithsonian research are significant.”

Image left: Bruno Frohlich, right, and Smithsonian anthropologist Dave Hunt prepare a mummy from Mongolia for entry into the the Natural History Museum’s CT scanner. (Photo by Don Hurlbert)

The National Museum of Natural History is one of the world’s preeminent research institutions in the field of the natural sciences. With more than 126 million specimens in its collections—the largest in the world—the museum is a repository for examples of the diversity of life on Earth and humanity’s common heritage. Under the leadership of anthropologist Bruno Frohlich, Smithsonian scientists and curators use the CT scanner on a daily basis to enrich understanding of the natural world and people’s place in it.

Research in the Smithsonian CT laboratory focuses on employing the CT scanner with the objective of understanding and studying objects, secure in the knowledge that they can be used and studied again in the future. “Most often scientific analytical research is associated with destructive methods,” said Bruno Frohlich. “Normally we have to destroy objects in order to study them. Nondestructive and noninvasive methods, such as CT scanning, not only enable us to study objects with greater attention to detail, but also ensure the preservation of the object and leaving it intact for future generations to study.”

This 53-second video consists of a series of images taken with a Siemens Somotom CT scanner of a mummy at the Department of Anthropology in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. The individual shown here is a male who died at about 40 years of age; a relatively mature age by ancient Egyptian standards. He is believed to have lived in Lower Egypt sometime between the 25-26th Greco-Roman periods, which is between 600 B.C. and about 150 A.D., or roughly 2,500 to 1,900 years ago.

While the CT scanner belongs to the National Museum of Natural History and has been used extensively to study the mummy collections, it is also available for use with other Smithsonian collections. “We use CT equipment to study valuable and precious objects such as the musical instruments in Smithsonian collections,” Frohlich said. “Happily, after a study is completed, musicians can still play the instrument. This is a remarkable breakthrough for science and museum conservation.”

Research findings made possible through the use of the new CT scanner were announced at an Oct. 27 presentation to Washington, D.C., public school elementary students at the National Museum of Natural History’s public hands-on Forensic Anthropology Lab. Four high school students from the museum’s youth internship program, “Youth Engagement Through Science,” visited Frohlich’s lab to observe the CT scanner on the mummy collection. The program included remarks by Samper, Hemani, Frohlich and Spiegel.

New Book: “Sweet Stuff: An American History of Sweeteners from Sugar to Sucralose”

John Barrat — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:35:38 +0000

Each year, the average American consumes around 150 pounds of sugars and substantial amounts of artificial sweeteners. In the new book Sweet Stuff: An American History of Sweeteners from Sugar to Sucralose, Deborah Jean Warner, curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, presents the story of America’s love affair with sugar and how sweeteners have affected key aspects of the American experience. Warner’s narrative covers the major natural sweeteners, including sugar, molasses from cane, beet sugar, corn syrup, honey and maple, as well as artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, cyclamate, aspartame and sucralose. This painstakingly researched and engaging narrative is the first book to detail the history of the subject, investigating it in the context of diet, science and technology, business and labor, politics and popular culture.

Warner weaves together the variety of routes that Americans have taken to a collective sweet tooth and looks at the ways that federal and state governments promoted some sweeteners and limited the distribution of others. The book examines the times when newer and less costly sweeteners threatened the market dominance of older and more expensive options. It also explores complex issues through the sweeteners industry, such as food purity, food safety and truth in advertising. Warner reveals many aspects of the American business spirit that have accompanied and contributed to the sweetener industry and demonstrates how sweeteners of all varieties have become part of the fabric of our communities. “Sweet Stuff” takes a revealing look at sweeteners that will appeal to those interested in food culture as well as American culture and history.

(Sweet Stuff: An American History of Sweeteners from Sugar to Sucralose by Deborah Jean Warner, is published by Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, in cooperation with Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc./September 2011)

Unlocking the mysteries of Jefferson’s bible with high-tech analysis and microscopic testing

John Barrat — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:27:23 +0000

The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, more commonly known as the Jefferson bible, is a volume created by Thomas Jefferson containing passages he chose from the four Gospels of the New Testament. Jefferson cut these passages out and pasted them on to blank pieces of paper which were then bound into a book. A team of conservators has been tasked with documenting the current condition of the volume in this post from the National Museum of American History blog “O say can you see?”

Following in the footsteps of James Smithson

John Barrat — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:04:22 +0000

Inveraray Castle in Argyllshire, Scotland, was one of the places visited by James Smithson (1764–1829), geologist and founder of the Smithsonian Institution, during the summer of 1784 while he was traveling on a scientific expedition to the remote island of Staffa on Scotland’s Northwest coast. Steven Turner, Division of Medicine and Science curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, recently retraced Smithson’s journey to Staffa and wrote about it in an interesting post “Following in the footsteps of James Smithson,” on the American History Museum blog “O say can you see?”

Sandia Interior Robot acquired by American History Museum

John Barrat — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:55:21 +0000

This interior robot was recently added to the permanent robotics collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History as a donation from Sandia National Laboratories. First introduced in 1985, it was the only robot at that time able to navigate a building without a pre-programmed pathway or floor wiring. Other recent donations from Sandia to the robotics collection included hopping robots; Miniature Autonomous Robotic Vehicles; and one of the earliest battlefield scout robots developed in the 1980s. The robots were donated during National Robotics Week at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the American History Museum. (Photo by Randy Montoya, Sandia National Laboratories)

Lemelson Center receives $2.6 million grant for informal science education

John Barrat — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 13:55:25 +0000

The Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation recently received a grant of $2.6 million from the National Science Foundation to support informal science education through the center’s “Places of Invention” exhibition project.

Images right and below: Children participate in hands-on activities at the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation.

“Places of Invention,” a planned 3,500-square-foot exhibition at the National Museum of American History scheduled to open in 2014, will feature a selection of “hot spots” of invention and innovation—places where a critical mass of inventive people, networks, institutions, funding and other resources come together and creativity flourishes. Focusing on the mid-19th century to the present, each exhibition area will have hands-on experiences based on inventive skill-building and illustrating the ways that place and social collaboration shape the inventive process.

“Scholars and the public have long been interested in the physical spaces and geographic locations that foster invention and innovation,” said Arthur Molella, director of the center. “This grant allows us to bring these stories to the public after years of work by the center in researching these ‘hot spots.’ We look forward to embarking on this next step.”

Plans include an “invent town” activity area within the exhibition where visitors can interact with each other, exchanging ideas and practicing skills; a website; and collaboration with Smithsonian Affiliate museums. Visitors to the museum and the website will be invited to add hometown stories of creative activities and share inventive designs. “Places of Invention” represents a new model in exhibition design where content is co-created in a collaborative manner by the center, professional partners and the public.

The Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center is dedicated to exploring invention in history and encouraging inventive creativity in young people. The center is supported by The Lemelson Foundation, a private philanthropy established by one of the country’s most prolific inventors, Jerome Lemelson, and his family. The Lemelson Center is located in the National Museum of American History. For more information, visit http://invention.smithsonian.org.

Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History Acquires 75 Years of Auto Safety

John Barrat — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 13:32:26 +0000

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History recently accepted a donation of objects related to 75 years of auto-safety innovation and initiatives from 10 individuals, companies and organizations, including General Motors, Volvo, the American Automobile Association and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Among the objects accepted into the collection are the original “Vince and Larry” crash-test dummy costumes that appeared in the Safety Belt Education campaign nationwide from 1985 through 1998.

The campaign was developed to encourage vehicle passengers to use safety belts, and featured Vince and Larry, who dramatized what could happen when you don’t wear a safety belt. The public service advertisements included the tagline, “You can learn a lot from a dummy…Buckle your safety belt.”

The objects became part of the museum’s permanent collection that illustrates the evolution of automobile safety and research. The objects join nearly a dozen previously acquired artifacts, including a 1948 Tucker sedan with advanced safety features and an after-market seat belt manufactured by the Selfgard company in the 1960s.

“Millions of lives have been saved on America’s roadways thanks to the combined efforts of lawmakers, automakers, engineers and safety advocates,” said Brent D. Glass, director of the museum. “This research collection offers a tangible record of these efforts, as well as inspiration to future generations of American innovators, historians and all automobile lovers.” –Jessica Porter

New Acquisition: Lutron Electronics donates 50 years of company history to National Museum of American History

John Barrat — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:38:08 +0000

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History recently acquired materials from Lutron Electronics chairman and founder, Joel Spira. Materials related to the company’s 50-year history will be added to the Museum’s Electricity Collections.

Image left: The classic Lutron “Capri” dimmer switch.The donation includes an early version of the original solid-state Capri dimmer manufactured by Lutron in September 1964. Also part of the donation is a retail display featuring the fully functional dimmer and other Lutron dimmers and lighting-control systems that show developments at the company over the past 50 years.

The Lutron materials will join other artifacts in the museum’s Electricity Collection, including experimental light bulbs from Thomas Edison, dimming light sockets from the 1910s, theatrical lighting controls from the 1920s and many types of light switches.

“The Lutron objects help to fill a hole in the museum’s collection of lighting controls,” says Hal Wallace, associate curator of the Electricity Collections. “These objects span the period from 1964 to 2009 and bring our collection up to date.”

Several of the more recent pieces show how computer technology has been incorporated into lighting controls. For example, two of the objects are remotely controlled dimming units – one is a wireless device, the other operates with an infrared control. From a cultural standpoint, these devices raise interesting questions about our changing ability to control our interior environments, and the means by which we do so.

Image right: The Lutron Skylark eco-dim light switch.

“American homes changed significantly during the 20th century as people adopted electricity for any number of tasks, including illumination,” says Wallace. “Objects such as those being donated by Lutron fit in nicely with the switches and control devices we preserve that date back to Edison’s day. Studying the tools of everyday life, such as light switches, helps us to understand our ever-changing technological society.”
--Jessica Porter

New acquisition: A circular slide rule called an “omnimetre,” invented in 1891

John Barrat — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:49:14 +0000

Attached to a paper base, the humble disc inscribed with dozens of numbers rests in quiet obscurity in the Mathematics Collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. It was donated to the museum recently by George Dankers, a naval architect who used it for 30 years in the design of ships and boats.

Called an omnimetre, it is the 1891 invention of Philadelphia engineer Albert Sexton who created its prototype using a piece of tracing paper and a suspender button. As its name suggests, the omnimetre was designed to carry out numerous operations of arithmetic and trigonometry, says Peggy Kidwell, curator of mathematics at the Smithsonian. “It has scales for multiplication, division and common logarithms, as well as squares, cubes, and fifth powers of numbers.” In his own words, Sexton called his circular invention a “quite useful and inexpensive slide rule.”

The omnimetre sold successfully in America for some 60 years yet was never widely popular. Still, this device and other 19th century “aids to arithmetic,” Kidwell says, helped “shape and reshape engineering and the activity of mathematicians” at a critical time in American history.

In the late 1800s, the growth of American professional engineering, new manufacturing techniques, European precedents, and the innovations of people like Sexton combined to encourage much wider use of aids to computation. Arithmetic, once considered as a purely intellectual activity, increasingly became a mechanical task. Mathematical analysis also played a larger role in business, engineering and the social sciences. Ownership of computing devices, especially slide rules, came to be seen as a symbol of technical competence.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is home to a collection of several thousand mathematical instruments that includes not only a few hundred slide rules but numerous calculating machines, drawing instruments, geometric models and teaching devices. Sexton’s slide rule is an invention that tells an important story about the rise of mathematics and engineering in America.