Posted by Communications staff on 8/4/2021
For an audio version of this story, visit spokaneschools.org/listen
“How’s everybody doing today, did you have fun at recess?”
“It’s too hot!” students shout.
Paraeducator Phil Saunders stands in front of a group of fourth through sixth graders at Audubon Elementary’s summer camp.
“So, I’ve got some questions to start off, OK? What is sound?”
All eyes are fixed on an antique wooden box he’s brought from home.
A student in the back row leans forward. “Vibrations in the air current makes it so you can hear people,” he says. Saunders agrees, then leads a brief discussion on the nature of sound waves that segues to Thomas Edison, often described as America's greatest inventor who took out more than 1,000 patents before his death in 1931.
“So, Edison is most known for what? Does anyone know what his most known invention is?”
“The lightbulb.”
“That’s right, he invented the lightbulb. And this an Edison player.” Saunders opens the box to reveal an Edison phonograph cylinder player. It’s the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound and a precursor to the record player. This one is circa early 1900s.
The class talks through the dynamics of amplification and what life was like prior to widespread electricity before considering the invention’s usefulness in a time when many people couldn’t read, write, or travel cross country to see loved ones.
“So, [Edison] thought, well this would be handy, because somebody on this side could say, ‘Hi Aunty, we’re doing great, we just planted the crops.’ And it’ll record on a cylinder that looks just like this. And you can each take one.”
Students choose from a box full of hollow cylinders, then line up at the player to hear what they hold.
“What you’re holding in your hand is 100 years old, at least!”
Saunders winds up the machine, places a cylinder onto the rotating chamber, then carefully releases the stylus.
A violin crackles to life.
