Sixty years ago this month, Radio News, November 1955, carried this photo recreating an American living room sixty years before that, in the 1890’s.  The photograph was staged by NBC, and the photo taken by Jack Zwillinger.  It features an Edison Talking machine.

We’re at a distinct advantage over those in 1955, since we have the capability of listening to many of those early recordings.  In 1955, the fragile cylinders would have been too precious to play on the original equipment.  Fortunately, many of these recordings, some well over a century old, have been digitized and made available on the internet by the UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive and others.  The Library of Congress also has thousands of recordings online, although most of their collection are discs recorded after the turn of the Twentieth Century.  To get an idea of what the woman in the photo might have been listening to, this link will allow you to play The Last Rose of Summer, an 1894 Edison recording.

While the ornate horn is obviously an upscale version of the instrument, a phonograph was already becoming affordable to Americans in the 1890’s, and the scene depicted here would not have been extraordinary.  By 1900, a basic Edison machine could be had for about $10, with the cylinders going for about $5 per dozen.

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