Wax Cylinder Music Days Portal
Before The Victrola Record Days,
Were The Wax Cylinder Days.
Thomas Edison's favorite invention was the phonograph.
In 1877, he created a way to record
sound on tinfoil cylinders by using
and one for playback.
The first words that Edison
recorded were "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Billy Williams 1878-1915
Ten years later, in 1887, Edison formed the Edison Phonograph Company to sell the phonograph to the public.
This marked the beginning of the sound recording industry. The first records sold by the Edison and Columbia Phonograph Companies were on wax cylinders. These were brittle and broke easily. Columbia ceased production of wax cylinders in 1909 when discs became popular. The Edison National Phonograph Company continued making cylinders and discs until 1929. Cylinder records and other recordings made throughout the twentieth century are valuable primary resources.For the first time in political history, candidates in the 1908 presidential election (William Howard Taft, Republican and William Jennings Bryan, Democrat ) recorded speeches that were sold to the public. Many institutions such as the Smithsonian and Library of Congress are trying to preserve recordings such as these under a program called Saving America's. S