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Making the Perfect Record: From Inscription to Impression in Early Magnetic Recording

Poulsen and His Research Team

Before and during the Exhibition, Poulsen’s research team included P. O. Pedersen, E. S. Hagemann, J. P. Christensen, E. Lübcke, H. Zopke, and Ernst Ruhmer.

(This note comments on the page titled, "Exhibiting the Telegraphone," as well as the attached audio recording titled, "Paris World Exposition Recording of Emperor Franz Joseph (1900).")

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Exhibiting the Telegraphone For instance, the telegraphone received a gold medal at the 1900 Paris World Exhibition. From the perspective of industry and consumer culture, that event was a major gathering on an international scale. Clark and Nielsen (1995) explain the scene at the telegraphone’s demonstration. They note that novelist Émile Zola was present, as was Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph, who consented to a recording. They also point out that “Poulsen no doubt sought to emulate Alexander Graham Bell, who had induced Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro to use his newly-invented telephone twenty-four years before at the American Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia” (1995, 16). Put differently: Poulsen and his research team followed a long legacy of publicly dramatizing the potential of technologies at such exhibitions. Indeed, Poulsen’s 1900 demonstration, and Bell’s in 1876, are only two instances in a tradition of science fiction–esque performances at fairs between 1850 and 1900.29