Subject: Manhattan street-noise recordings, 1906 to 1908 Fwd:
From: Kevin Austin (kevin.austin@videotron.ca)
Date: Sat May 12 2007 - 11:28:40 EDT
Please reply to him at his email address.
From: j.chiles@comcast.net
Date: May 12, 2007 11:01:17 AM EDT (CA)
Greetings:
By way of background, I'm finishing up a book for Random House that
will be a social history of helicopters (the book is due out in
October, and entitled "The God Machine"). It's my second book. I've
been a writer in the fields of history and technology since 1979,
mostly for Smithsonian, and Air&Space.
While researching the early history of citizen opposition to loud
noises in Manhattan for my helicopter book I came across a line of
clippings describing street-level ambience recordings that were done
on behalf of a movement called the Society for the Suppression of
Unnecessary Noise (SSUN), which was organized in 1906 by Julia
Hyneman Barnett Rice, the wife of lawyer-financier Isaac L. Rice.
This is peripheral to my book but I'm intrigued about whether any of
these custom recordings might still exist. If so it would be great to
have the sounds cataloged and preserved for urban historians.
Summarized in one sentence, here is my question:
"Does anyone have information or leads about New York City
street-noise recordings collected in the period 1906-1908 on the
behalf of anti-noise activists associated with the Society for the
Suppression of Unnecessary Noise?"
These recordings are mentioned in several New York publications of
the era. Whether any of the recordings were saved is unknown (and the
odds are against it), and even if saved in some attic or basement,
mold or heat may have damaged the cylinders irreparably. But if found
and reconstructed they would be of considerable historical interest
as they may be the earliest urban audioscapes ever collected. I have
promised to let professional archivists know if any of the recordings
turns up.
Here is one article excerpt, from page 4 of the New York Times, dated
October 31, 1908, entitled "Canned Din by Phonograph."
"Canned noises of the New York brand are to be taken to Boston this
week and turned loose on a large and fashionable audience, and the
week after next Pittsburgh will hear the phonographic records of New
York's hideous sounds by day and by night. ... Mrs. Rice has been
employing a number of Columbia students to get samples of the noises
for reproduction by phonograph. She now has a large collection ..."
More background on the circumstances: A key to Julia Rice's political
strategy, which worked rather well in getting anti-noise laws passed
both in NYC and at the federal level, was to gather the most
obnoxious street noises by phonograph and play them at public
meetings. The captured noises included iron rims clashing on
cobblestones, phonograph parlors that charged listeners by the nickel
and advertised by blaring into the street, flattened and screeching
wheels on streetcars, church bells, steam tugboat whistles at night
along the Hudson, and street vendors.
The noise recording activity began in November 1906 and may have
continued through 1908. One person central to the recording effort
was Victor Hugo Emerson, then a recording supervisor with Columbia
Phonograph Co.
Here are some thoughts about this search - any corrections or
additions are welcome.
- Presumably these noises were all recorded on wax cylinders, either
a Edison or Columbia machine, given the state of portable recording
technology. Edison cylinder machines were popular among field
anthropologists at the time.
- Articles mention graphophones for playback, but I suppose this term
was loosely used and did not always indicate a Columbia "Graphophone"
product.
- Articles mention students working on the project, from Columbia
University. Isaac Rice had been an instructor at Columbia before
going into business as a submarine builder and battery magnate.
- Mrs. Rice was wealthy and the SSUN had many prominent supporters
around the city and she would have had the money to lease a top-end
machine for playback.
- Columbia Phonograph was interested in publicizing the usefulness of
dictation machines at the time, or so I have read.
- There is no mention that the cylinders were transcribed to discs
for playback, but there is mention that the recordings were played
repeatedly and at high volume.
- Could typical machines be heard in a hall with 100 people? Might
this indicate the use of a Higham reproducer, such as on the
Graphophone model BM?
- Cylinder boxes would probably be private recordings done between
1906 and 1908. They might be hand-labeled. Labels might refer
cryptically to "New York streets," "hospital zones," "peddlers,"
"street cars," "steam whistles," "church bells," "Health
Commissioner Darlington," "SSUN," "Mrs. Isaac L. Rice," "Victor H.
Emerson," or "Columbia Phonograph Co. personal service department."
- Julia died in 1929 in Deal NJ. If the cylinder boxes were not
discarded when the SSUN was discontinued or at her death, the
cylinders might have gone any of several directions: to the NYC Board
of Health, to subsequent anti-noise groups like the League for Less
Noise, to Columbia Phonograph Co., to Columbia U, or to her six
children.
Posted by:
Jim Chiles <mailto:j.chiles@comcast.net>j.chiles@comcast.net
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