Our House

Technology is a marvel.
Nowadays we can listen to any kind of music anywhere.
Singers, bands, orchestras, or operas
playing in the parlor, the kitchen, even outside.

Friends and family can enjoy the entertainment too.
And if we want we can share the experience in a photo.
It's simple with modern cameras so cheap
and easy to operate.
Snap and it's done.
A dozen copies to send off to distant kith and kin.

Printed on stiff card paper,
there's even room for a quick written note.
Drop it in with a letter or send it off by itself,
in a day or two the postman will deliver
your own personal photo and message.

How's that for a wonder!
A few years ago we'd never dream such a thing.

Das ist unser Haus.
Du wirst wohl die meisten kennen
~
This is our house.
You will probably know most of them.

Technology is indeed a marvel in our contemporary life. Today we take it for granted that mobile cell phones smaller than a pack of cards will somehow connect us to distant voices or send text messages too. Photos are no problem either as the same device lets us take selfies and share them instantly with people around the globe. Want some music to get your heart rate up? These tiny computers magically keep a library of thousands upon thousands of tunes. How did we ever get by without these wonderful gadgets?

The answer of course is that a hundred years ago people like this German-American family just had different novel gadgets for entertainment and fast communication. 

The small postcard pictured above is an unusual example of three different early technologies. The first is the postcard itself. In the 1900s for a just a penny, one could send a handwritten message and, at least in your town, expect it was delivered that day. A reply might come in the afternoon mail. And if your brother lived in Milwaukee it still might take only a few days for him to receive it.

The second technology is the photograph. As camera companies developed inexpensive film systems, it allowed anyone to take a photo. No studio was needed. You could set up the family and friends to pose outside your home. That afternoon the local drug store would process the film and print up as many photo postcards as you liked.

The third technology in this photo was the centerpiece, a gramophone proudly displayed by the gentleman with the majestic mustache. Thomas Edison's first phonograph machine, invented in 1877, captured sound on a cylinder. In 1887 Emile Berliner did the same thing on a revolving disc. He called his device a gramophone and it offered a cheaper way to duplicate sound recordings. But he needed a better mechanism to control the speed of the disc. In 1895 the Berliner Gramophone company engaged Eldridge R. Johnson to make a special spring-driven motor that would maintain a constant speed and torque while accounting for the drag of the gramophone needle on the disc's grooves. Not only did Johnson produce a motor at an affordable cost, but he also improved on the sound box and the method for mass producing records. In 1901 Johnson and Berliner incorporated the Victor Talking Machine Co. and then agreed to allow Columbia Records the use of its disc recording patent.

The Victor company's logo, His Master's Voice, became one of the greatest brand trademarks in advertising history. Ironically the original painting of the terrier Nipper looking into a brass acoustic horn was conceived by Francis Barraud, an English artist, as a marketing image for the phonograph with the cylindrical recording mechanism.  When he was unable to sell it to any British phonograph company, it was purchased in 1899 by the Emile Berliner's Gramophone Co. on the condition that it be modified to show their disc machine.

"His Master's Voice" logo with Nipper
used by the Victor Talking Machine Company
Source: Wikipedia

 
My postcard has no other clues for identification. The back is blank except it is an American photo postcard paper. The house is vaguely American with clapboard siding and a wood shake roof. It has a curious "widow's walk" or "widow's watch" deck on the rooftop which is a typical addition to a house in a coastal community.  The best clue is the gramophone which is very like the models popular in America around 1904-1910. The extra large horn, possibly made of nickle silver, would greatly amplify the sound of any record. A gramophone used a sharp needle to pick up the acoustic ridges and valleys on a disc groove, but there was no control of the vibration's dynamics. A big horn like this would magnify an amazing amount of sound and fill a house with music.  

By 1909 the Victor company had a number of different models of it's gramophone, all with the HMV dog. An advertisement in The Garden Magazine showed the Victor I which is not unlike the machine pictured in my photo postcard. It cost $25 and was described as "the world's greatest musical instrument."

The Garden Magazine
December 1909

Advertisements for the Victor appeared in the Farm Journal and similar publications read by rural Americans. A gramophone was just the thing to enliven a home after the fall harvest, bringing music and voices to soothe the soul. This was same machine President Taft has at the White House, the one that is owned by the King and Queen of England, the Emperor of Germany, the King and Queen of Spain, the King of Italy, the King of Portugal, His Holiness Pope Oius X, and thousands of other distinguished personages.

The Farm Journal
October 1909

At the end of 1909 even The American Poultry Advocate had Victor advertisements of Santa Claus with a sleigh full of gramophones. "Be sure to get this gift." "Get it easy terms."

The American Poultry Advocate
December 1909

There are a lot of gramophone enthusiasts on YouTube who produce videos of their collections of old 78 recordings and antique gramophone machines. Even though there is not much action, this one gives a good acoustic impression of how these mechanical record players sound. This is Enrico Caruso singing "Questa o quella"  from the opera Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi. It is played on a Victrola V-1 Gramophone.

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Technology is always changing, usually improving (though not always), and the windup gramophone became obsolete in the 1920s with the introduction of electric motor driven record players. When radio brought live music and voices into the home there was another wave of consumer gadgets, followed by television, and then the internet. 78rpm discs were superseded by 45s, then 33 and 1/3s, and then compact discs, and now streaming digital. So it goes. Time marches on at its inevitable pace. Left behind is a long trail of countless old fashioned objects that have lost the gleam of marvel that they once had. If only we could hear the music that once played at that German-American household. That would be a wonder.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where everyone want to be a DJ.