My capstone called “Early Recording Philadelphia” is a project developed with a digital and physical element to engage and emphasize the importance Philadelphia has served in the recording industry. My project aims to emphasize and inform people of this history, thus fueling the inquiry of local historians and students. I decided on a small physical display to occupy shelf space in SLA to allow for a somewhat self guided pace for learning. A large portion of my capstone was dedicated research and consolidating information regarding the history of the recording industry. My sources were gathered mostly from book publications on the early history of it. I made use of my membership with the Antique Phonograph Society to gather information and discuss ideas with my mentor. My mentor is a fellow collector/historian, named Sean Miller. Sean has helped me throughout the capstone process by giving me routine advice, leads to look into, and various original pieces. A large portion of my 80 hours has been spent during phone calls and research sessions with Sean, including a week-long visit to his house in Delmar, NY, during spring break of 2024. The digital aspect of my capstone is a website that will continue to be developed and added to even after I leave SLA, a sort of personal history education page that will grow and change as time passes. It serves as the public front for my work, it’s the aspect that non-SLA students will see and perceive. That is my capstone.

https://sites.google.com/scienceleadership.org/early-recording-philly/home

Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h_JLcY4QnhUSGiYjMUxaFaflBSp2SMw489ZwKZPF5Iw/edit?usp=sharing

Billy’s Vote

Pages 100 - 126

The ward had been slow all day, nothing to do but continue our Monopoly game. We’d been at it for a few days at this point, I don’t even know how many days it’d been since we first passed Go. Mac was the banker. I think Harding made him banker, said he’s smart with money. He’s smart with money alright, just not any of his own! Lost maybe $20 by then playing poker. No, I didn’t lose it. I got robbed!
Cheswick’s got a funny look on his face, the kind he gets before he throws a fit and stamps his feet at Miss Ratched. 

“Martini, roll the damn dice!” Martini ain’t paying him any mind, he’s got one dice in his left hand and the other in his mouth. I don’t think he even realizes he just chews on stuff. His mouth is like a vacuum, one of those big fields in space NASA says is sucking up light. I saw it on the news last week, the space programs aren’t just to win the race against the Soviets. They also seen big fields of nothing swallowing light, massive chunks of space gone in a flash. That dice ain’t so different, its shiny surface approaching the black chasm in the back of Martini’s throat.

“For god’s sake Martini don’t swallow the fuckin’ dice!”

Mac screams as he reaches into Martini’s mouth and yanks the dice out.

He’s like a father, yanking a tooth out of a petulant toddler. He wipes the dice off on his shirt and clacks them together in his hand, rolling them for Martini. Martini couldn’t care less, he’s drifted somewhere else now. I don’t know where he drifts when he’s got that blank, vacant stare. I wish I could see what he sees. We played for about an hour. Longest damn hour of my life.

“Could all acute ward patients report to the day room? Group therapy shall begin in 3 minutes.” Miss Ratched’s soft voice echoes over the loudspeaker. It’s not very loud in the tub room, almost faint. Like a spirit drifting in and out of the room. Maybe that’s what Martini sees. 

We scoot chairs to the dayroom, clear the tables, and all sit down. Miss Ratched is holding her folders and that notebook. That damn notebook. Mac calls it the “God damn motherfuckin’ book of the devil.” I wrote down something he said on Tuesday, he started blabbering about one of his past “flings” I hate when he does that. Can’t talk about girls like that, Mother warned me so.

“M-m-m-miss Ratched? C-could I talk a-a-a-about myself today? I-I-I-I just feel li-like it.”

She nods and we begin. I don’t share often, and usually when I do I talk about Mother. This time was different, I had other things on my mind. Mac talks about the military a bit. Got me thinkin’. I was almost an army man. Almost.

I felt like I talked for days, my throat dry as a desert by the time she asked me to get off the topic of my stutter. I couldn’t help it. I got lots to say, but my throat don’t got the time to say it. It’s in a hurry, it wants all words vacated and closed up. “Spit it out! C’mon, say it with your chest! Speak up, boy!”

I’ve heard that kinds of stuff all my life. Nothing’s new. Never new stuff on the ward. Miss Ratched moves the topic along. Now she wants me to talk about the girl. Mother never liked girls. Says they take me away from her.
“So, Billy, do you think your Mother is overbearing in a sense? I mean, me and her are old friends and I’ve never gotten that sense from her, but perhaps you could shine a light on your perspective.”
“I-I-I-I-I just f-f-f-feel there’s got to b-be a better way to be a p-p-p-p-parent! I don’t w-want to be just an e-e-extension of h-her! I’m n-not no o-octopus arm!”

“Yeah, Billy’s his own man!” Cheswick pipes up and stands on his feet, the little brat he is. Biggest middle-aged brat I’ve ever seen. I hate it, he doesn’t let a man fight his own battles. Ain’t nobody needs a little puppy like him chirping at everyone everywhere. 

“S-s-s–s-shut up Cheswick!” “Calm down Mr. Bibbit, our meeting is going to conclude soon. No need for hostility. Save your thoughts for the next meeting.” She intermittently puts her finger to her lips and shushes me, like she’s blowing candles between her words. “Now with that, I believe this meeting shall come to a close if nothing else is to be said.” Mac’s not happy, he’s still got something to say. He always does.

“As a matter of fact, ma’am, there does happen to be something. Remember that vote we had a day or so back – about the TV time? Well, today’s Friday and I thought I might just bring it up again, just to see if anybody else has picked up a little guts.”

“Mr. McMurphy, the purpose of this meeting is therapy, group therapy, and I’m not certain these petty grievances–”
“Yeah, yeah, the hell with that, we’ve heard it before. Me and some of the rest of the guys decided–”

“One moment, Mr. McMurphy, let me pose a question to the group: do any of you feel that Mr. McMurphy is perhaps imposing his personal desires on some of you too much? I’ve been thinking you might be happier if he were moved to a different ward.”

She cuts him off again, but this time ain’t nobody listening to her. She’s got that voice of daggers, but her words ain’t touching Mac. He’s a mountain of a man with skin hard as rocks. Mac kept arguing, he wanted that vote. In a way, we all wanted it. I put my hand up this time, I knew I had to. All us acutes did. I didn’t mean it as disrespect to Miss Ratched, I swear I didn’t.

But I felt like it told her something, something I’ve wanted to say for a long while. I had lots to say, and this time my hand had the time to say it. 

Why Billy?

I used Billy Bibbit’s character as a speaker since I feel a personal connection to him somewhat. Billy as a character struggles greatly with asserting himself to his mother and Ratched, and it’s specifically told he was institutionalized at the suggestion of his mother to Ratched, although he is a full grown adult and is not permanently committed. His character is something I personally relate to when it comes to assertion and confidence. In my writing I wanted to create a descriptive scene and show the amount that could go on in Billy’s mind as a character yet still preserve the very limited he speaks about due to his reservations. Billy is thinking a lot but not talking much.

In my previous post I talked about the history of wax cylinder records and why their historical value is worth preserving and I discussed the people who are interested in preserving them and why. In my Agent of Change I am aiming to continue to spread awareness of cylinder records and promote the preservation of them by continuing campaigning and promoting archives and agencies who preserve records, like the UCSB Cylinder Archive. I have also created an Instagram account that is going to post daily to raise further awareness for cylinders. The account will post daily and share a fun fact about cylinder records and share a daily cylinder recording from the UCSB archives, which will both promote awareness and bring even more attention to the efforts being made at UCSB. My further research and starting the cylinder account has shown me that people are interested in cylinders quite a bit, seeing as the account so far has 19 followers and the 2 posts I have done so far are getting likes and engagement. I am hopeful that people will continue to follow the account and some more efforts can be made in the future to continue spreading awareness. I also hope that I can make an effort to reach out to UCSB eventually and help to organize some sort of campaign to get museums to start preserving cylinders as they do other forms of art. My goal beyond just raising awareness is mainly to get people/organizations who have the funds and resources to preserve and digitize cylinders to consider starting collections similar to the UCSB archives. UCSB is the only archive for cylinders of it’s kind, so I hope museums in the future consider starting collections of cylinders. I have also found out that the Library of Congress has also made efforts to preserve cylinders, but I am unsure if these kinds of efforts are still being made today. The Federal Cylinder Project also has worked to preserve Native American cylinder projects as well, which is a great effort to preserve a culture that not many people have considered. I feel that so far my Agent of Change has gone well, but I think that I should’ve reached out to UCSB sooner than I planned to, because I didn’t expect the Instagram account to gain immediate attention, although I am glad that it has actually started to make progress so early on. I am happy overall with this project as a whole, since I have made a lot of progress with gaining followers for the account. I also feel happy that I’ve found a way to use one of my personal interests with music to create something to inspire change and help preserve an important part of history that many don’t care about. I also feel like with this project I am going to start my own personal efforts to preserve cylinders and start a collection. I hope that one day I can start an archive to store and transcribe home recordings of wax cylinders. I just need to continue to run the account and hopefully save my money to purchase more cylinders and technology to play them and preserve the audio.

What is a wax cylinder record?

Wax cylinder records are the earliest commercial form of audio and music recording and storage methods. They predate CDs, vinyl records, and even 78 RPM shellac records. Wax cylinders were innovative as a recording medium because they both allowed the consumer to listen to prerecorded music and allowed for the consumer to record their own audio over the original recording. Wax cylinders are also unique in the sense that they’re one of the only forms of physical recording to not be a conventional disc shape, instead they took on the shape of a cylinder, like a can of soup. Wax cylinder could only store one song at a time, unlike later vinyl records which could store whole albums. It was impossible to produce a wax cylinder that could hold a whole album, so lots of musicians were limited by the standard recording time of around 2 minutes. Later cylinders known as amberols were able to hold 4 minutes of music due to a new type of needle used to play the cylinders on a phonograph and smaller grooves in the material.

What’s the history behind wax cylinders?

The history of wax cylinders begins in 1877 when Thomas Edison used his Phonograph invention to play sheets of tin foil wrapped around a metal cylinder with grooves. At the time tin foil wasn’t a viable recording medium to store music for a mass market, so the idea wasn’t developed much more until 1887. It was in 1887 when Alexander Graham Bell’s Dictaphone Company was working with the US Congress to test and improve the design of the Graphophone. After seeing a demonstration of the Graphophone Edison resumed his work on a commercially viable Phonograph model that could play cylinders made of wax instead of tin foil. Wax was chosen as a material because grooves could easily be sketched into the material by different types of needles, which allowed for the cylinders to be used and re-recorded over many times. Edison’s Phonograph and the Graphophone both became available in the commercial market in 1888. The first cylinder to ever be recorded was made on June 29, 1888, and was a performance of George Frideric Handel’s Israel in Egypt. Professionally made recordings of songs began to be made available in 1889, which typically feature performances of orchestras and small instrumental ensembles. The unique feature of cylinders being made of wax also allowed for cylinders to be reused and recorded over by consumers at home. These home recordings are often referred to as brown/black wax home recordings. The colors brown and black refer to the type of wax the cylinder is made of. Due to consumers being able to make their own recordings Phonographs typically came with an attachment that let the user record their own audio onto a cylinder at home. Initially the type of wax used to make cylinders was quite brittle and could easily wear down if the surface was rubbed too hard, which meant cylinders had to be held a special way to not be damaged. To hold a cylinder you must put your index finger and middle finger inside the hole of the cylinder and keep your other fingers off the surface where the grooves are located. Most wax cylinders were wax all throughout, which meant things like mold are common to find on wax cylinders due to their age. The packaging that cylinders came in was usually made of cardboard with a cotton lining inside to protect the surface grooves on the cylinder when being stored. Oftentimes a slip of paper containing the cylinder ID and song title/performers was included on top of the cylinder containers to tell consumers what they were buying. Brown wax cylinders were known to be quite fragile, only able to survive around 50 plays on a machine. It wasn’t until 1902 when a new moulding process was used to make cylinders that were harder and could survive more plays. This new line of cylinders were typically black in color and were harder than the brown wax cylinders. The line was known as Gold Moulded Cylinders due to the moulding process leaving behind a gold vapor due to gold electrons. These Gold Moulded records were sold in cardboard tubes with a cotton lining similar to the brown wax cylinder boxes, except pieces of paper containing the cylinder ID and song title didn’t need to be included anymore because the details were engraved on the top of the cylinder record itself. While black and brown wax cylinders were being made in the early 1900s a man named Thomas B Lambert was developing a cylinder that could be made of celluloid, which is an early type of plastic that is extremely durable. Lambert developed a way to mass produce and sell these celluloid cylinders in 1900. The records were originally cast in a bright pink, but were changed to a deep black color in 1903. This was due to the black dye reducing surface noise on the records. Celluloid cylinders were different from wax cylinders because they were extremely durable and unable to be shaved over, meaning home recordings could not be made out of them. Celluloid cylinders can survive hundreds of plays on a machine, and are actually as durable as vinyl records. One of the few problems that plagues celluloid cylinders, unlike wax cylinders, is that the plastic can shrink over time if not stored in proper conditions. Lambert continued to make these celluloid cylinders until his company went out of business in 1906 due to the Edison company repeatedly claiming they committed patent infringement, which ate up time and money. The Edison company basically harassed Lambert’s company until it went under to obtain the rights to make celluloid cylinders. The only problem was that Lambert owned the patent under his name, not his company. So the Edison company took time to develop a new system that used the same type of celluloid to make their own durable cylinders. In 1909 Edison debuted the Amberol brand, which was a line of cylinders that focused on the increased runtime of 4 minutes for songs. These new amberol cylinders, commonly known as just amberols, were initially produced in a black color similar to that of previous black wax cylinders. The Edison company continued to work towards acquiring Lambert’s patent, and in 1912 acquired the patent to produce celluloid cylinders. The Edison company immediately began producing celluloid cylinders with a plaster core and released them under the Amberol brand. These new cylinders came to be known as blue amberols due to a blue dye being used to color the cylinders. These blue amberols became the most durable form of physical storage of music and audio until the introduction of LP vinyls. Blue amberols became the last popular form of cylinder records, as they were made until the late 1920s and were faded out by shellac disc records, such as Edison Diamond Disc records. Late blue amberols were recorded by acoustically dubbing audio from Diamond Disc records to cylinders. The Edison company continued to produce cylinders until 1929, when the last cylinder was made in October.

Why should these old records be preserved anyway?

The preservation of wax cylinders is a vital part of preserving the history of music and especially the history of technological evolution. Wax cylinder recordings are extremely important because a lot of the equipment and technology used to play them and preserve them isn’t made anymore, so the limited amounts of people who work to preserve cylinders are running out of time and options to digitize and save important records. There are certain places that work to preserve these cylinders, such as the UCSB Cylinder Archive and the Edison Museum in New Jersey. These organizations work with private collectors and antique sellers to take old cylinders and use equipment to digitally store the audio and make them available to be listened to on the internet. Without these recordings that have been preserved we would have a very limited look into the culture of music during the very early 1900s. Preserving cylinders is also important because old home recordings of brown and black wax cylinders gives us a precious look into things like the lives and speech patterns of ordinary citizens who lived during the late Victorian era. Home recordings also have preserved lots of old religious prayers and monologues of people whose ideas would have never been preserved without cylinder records. Preserving these cylinders is a vital step in preserving a foggy period in time sandwiched between massive events and shifts in global politics.

Who’s involved in preserving these cylinders anyway?

One of the largest contributors in preserving cylinder records is the University of California Santa Barbara. UCSB is a public university in Santa Barbara which has a large online database that is free to access and allows users to explore cylinders that have been digitized. The cylinder catalogue they have stems from obscure home recordings all the way to professional recordings of orchestral pieces. UCSB also features a matrix archive of almost all historically significant physical recordings in the US. The UCSB archive is the best source for listening to and finding cylinders, and almost all of the cylinders are publicly available for free. Their website (http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/) also allows for users to donate money to help keep them running and operating their preservation efforts. The Edison Museum in New Jersey also focuses on preserving cylinder records, though they do not have a publicly available database akin to the UCSB archive. Private collectors also have resources to preserve cylinder records, though many cannot share them for internet users in the same way that UCSB can. Equipment to digitize and preserve cylinder records can cost up to $30,000. A device called an Archeophone is used to preserve cylinders and digitize the audio into a .wav format.

Who is still interested in these things, and why?

Lots of collectors who have private collections of physical records and antique technology are interested in collecting cylinders, though the market for them is extremely small. Cylinders aren’t hard to find and can be bought for around $10 on sites like Ebay, but the equipment used to play them is very expensive, so many people who collect things like vinyl records are deterred from collecting cylinders due to the high price of equipment.

Examples of wax cylinder song recordings:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/detail.php?query_type=mms_id&query=990025416400203776&r=4&of=4 http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?query_type=keyword&query=santa+claus+in+holland&nq=1 http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/detail.php?query_type=mms_id&query=990026419250203776&r=1&of=6 http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/detail.php?query_type=mms_id&query=990028607000203776&r=2&of=11 http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/detail.php?query_type=mms_id&query=990025467520203776&r=3&of=9

Sources:

https://asa.scitation.org/action/doSearch?SeriesKey=jas&AllField=wax+cylinders&ConceptID= https://www.cylinder.de/guide_black-wax-cylinders.html http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/history.php http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/history-tinfoil.php http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/history-wax.php https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qDwz3JdD1c http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/history-goldmoulded.php http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/history-amberol.php http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/history-blueamberol.php https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/resources/detail/432