1877 Tinfoil Recording

This recording, housed at the British Library's Sound Archive, is of an unknown female speaker recorded in circa 1877. The only description attached to the tinfoil strip is "Harriet Martineau", the name of a 19th century English sociologist and author, who lived from 1802 - 1876. Since Thomas Edison did not invent the phonograph until 1877, after Martineau was dead, the belief is that the recording contains the voice of an unknown woman quoting from Harriet Martineau's books, but the speech is too faint to be clearly deciphered.

[@superpokemonbros.9441]

You can hardly make out any sound at all through all the static, but I guess that what you'd expect when you leave a peice of tinfoil to rot for 146 years

[@FriedEgg69]

Still better than my microphone

[@Moon-Fake]

Terrifying

[@RumpledBlanket]

Cool

[@Miakhano]

I thought that tinfoil recordings from 1870s were completely lost due to rapid degeneracy of tinfoil media... I was interested in old recordings in late 2000s, in that time only surviving recordings were Leon Scott's phonautograms from 1860s and Edison's wax cylinders from 1880s. Please tell, when this tinfoil recording was restored to audible state?

[@JimPigMuseumOfSound]

This recording was first played on The British Library Podcast of December 8, 2008, the topic being the British Library’s earliest object containing recorded sound. This is one of only 2 tinfoil recordings played back in recent times, the other being the 1878 American exhibit recording, both recovered using digital scanning technology.

[@SureshKesraniOfficial]

thanks you for bringing up to the show to the new youth of 2023 after the almost 146 year of invention@@JimPigMuseumOfSound

[@keatonhardy3297]

@@JimPigMuseumOfSound here's an idea for a video: attempting to restore the 1877 tinfoil recording (The one that this video is about)

[@bartthegamer1354]

Sick who made this

[@bob3studios]

first sound recording of a womans voice?

[@JimPigMuseumOfSound]

Possibly ... but Leon Scott's "Song at a distance (The Echoes"), recorded in 1857, MAY feature the sound of a young girl belting out an unknown song. See my video 'Leon Scott's Complete Discography' at 1:25

[@bob3studios]

@@JimPigMuseumOfSound to my knowledge, scott only recorded his own voice, and the recordings that have been thought to contain a girls voice were played at double the speed they should have been.

[@JimPigMuseumOfSound]

@@bob3studios You are correct about the early playbacks, researchers did assume the wrong speed and a female singer. However the recording I was referring to was Scott’s experiment “Song at a Distance” ; this phonautogram has the words “Jeune Jouvencelle” (young little girl) written at the beginning, and “les echos” (the echoes) written at the end , by Scott himself, possibly identifying an unknown song sung by a guest singer. We may never know. See the web page FirstSounds.ORG, the original researcher’s homepage, for more info on this phonautogram.

[@AntoniosRemasteredworks]

@@JimPigMuseumOfSound I think that one is being played at the wrong speed too

[@trixzitailz4151]

The sound is terrible. But that's what you would expect for a peace of tinfoil that's badly damaged and worn out. Still it's fascinating. Is the date right? The phonograph was only invented at the very end of 1877.