The Phonograph's 142nd
Birthday celebration was held on December 7 and it was noted that
on this day, 142 years earlier and on the day after Edison had completed
his Phonograph, Edison took his tin-foil playing machine to the
offices of Scientific American for a triumphant demonstration
where the Phonograph "introduced itself." An account of this meeting
and a description of the talking machine was published in the December
22, 1877 issue of Scientific American.
This was also a significant
year for Phonographia.com and Friends of the Phonograph as
it's the first year that I know of that if you said "Hey
Google, Is December 6th the Birthday of the Phonograph?" the
voice from Google says "According to Phonographia, on December
6 at Edison's Menlo Park, New Jersey Laboratory, Thomas Alva Edison's
Phonograph was said to be "finished" and ready to be heard
by the world."
Yes!
The birthday party this
year continued the tradition of 'chocolate' and wine, and the triple
fudge mini-round brownies were again a two degrees of separation
reminder for Friends of the Phonograph that in 1903 there
was actually a phonograph made by the Stollwerck
Chocolate Company in Germany that was designed to play foiled wrapped
disk records made of chocolate!
The birthday party's
invitation included the expectation that the party would
also be educational so naturally there were some phonographia presentations.
The video The Phonograph and Santa included period piece
illustrations and an excerpt from Edison's 1905 movie "The
Night Before Christmas" by Edwin S. Porter; and a music video
of "Happy Birthday to the Phonograph" were also featured.
The
Phonograph and an
“Hello and Story from Santa”
The birthday party's
rendition of singing "Happy Birthday to the Phonograph"
was enthusiastic and pretty much on-key, and the candles, coded
as 142, were successfully blown out by the three youngest members
of Friends of the Phonograph (and one elder Phonographian,
a bit too far away to make any impact).
Another brief piece of
education included the history of writing letters to Santa in the
United States, and also some examples of other early possibilities
of communicating with Santa. Postcards were shared like the series
of postcards from 1903 showing Santa sending telegrams to children
so that they knew what his schedule was going to be.
The music video of "Happy
Birthday to the Phonograph" of course included photographs
of Edison and the original tinfoil phonograph and the audio was
also heard of Edison's later re-creation of his 'first words spoken
on the phonograph, a little piece of practical poetry, 'Mary had
a little lamb...'"
The open house was from
2:00 PM to 5:00 PM with final guests not leaving until after 7:00
and the consensus seemed to be that the Birthday party for Edison's
142 year-old Phonograph was a success.
