1940s–1960s
A coin, a curtain, a minute of your own voice
A Voice-O-Graph was a telephone box that recorded. You put in a coin, a curtain closed, a light told you to start, and a cutting head scored your voice straight into a blank disc of acetate or card — no tape, no second take, no copy. About a minute later the disc dropped into a slot, still warm, and you took it home. They stood in amusement arcades, at fairgrounds, in bus stations and on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, and for a great many ordinary people they were the only time in a life that a voice was recorded at all. Because each disc is unique, every one that survives is the only copy that has ever existed. Almost none are labelled. What you hear is a stranger, once, singing badly or saying hello, in a small hard room that made everybody sound the same.
7 recordings · 2 machines and stations
What cut them
Undated
No. 7
Home recordings
1 min
Cut in the Voice-O-Graph booth on the Empire State Building observation deck. Recording held by the Internet Archive; Undated; the archive item records only the machine and the place.
Undated
No. 6
Home recordings
1 min
A five- or six-inch 78rpm booth disc. The uploader notes that the speech is hard to make out “due to the resonance and reverb of the recording booth typical for these discs.” Recording held by the Internet Archive;
Undated
No. 5
Home recordings
1 min
The same disc, compressed and centred by the uploader to bring the voice forward. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
Undated
No. 4
Home recordings
1 min
No label, no name, no date — the uploader records only that neither the year nor the speaker is known. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
Undated
No. 3
Home recordings
1 min
A heavily damaged Voice-O-Graph, played anyway. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
Undated
No. 2
Home recordings
1 min
A card-backed postcard disc cut at 78rpm in a coin-operated Recordio-Gram machine, made to be posted. The uploader dates the machine to after 1948. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
Undated
No. 1
Home recordings
1 min
The second card of the pair. Despite the visible decay it is, in the uploader's words, the clearest recording in his collection. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
On this shelf
Voice-O-Graph and coin-operated postcard discs transferred from the original one-off pressings and held by the Internet Archive. Most carry no date: the machines themselves date them, and the uploaders' notes are quoted rather than guessed at.
