Exhibitions

Hear My Voice: Alexander Graham Bell and the Origins of Recorded Sound

January 26, 2015 – January 24, 2016

Detail, Alexander Graham Bell phonorecord, wax-on-binder-board disc recording, dated April 15, 1885 with AGB initials.

National Museum of American History
1300 Constitution Ave., NW
Washington, DC

2nd Floor, East Wing, Albert Small Documents Gallery

See on Map Floor Plan

Alexander Graham Bell is best remembered as the inventor of the telephone, but he was also instrumental in the development of sound recording at his Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C. See documents, recordings, laboratory notes, and apparatus from the Volta Laboratory dating from the 1880s; learn about the early history of sound recording in the United States; and hear some of the earliest sound recordings ever made. The recordings are made audible through a 21st century sound recovery technique developed by Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory staff in partnership with the Library of Congress and the Museum.