Excerpt from The Talking Machine Industry Frank broadbent (the eminent voice trainer). I want to congratulate you on an immense stride in the evolution of sound reproducers. For the first time I have heard beauty of vocal tone, faithfully reproduced, added to an infinitely clearer enunciation of the words. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from Industrial Colonies and Village Settlements for the Consumptive Symonds, and we together examined the patients, sampled the climate and other conditions, and argued with Unger and Ruedi. Then for the second time came Hope; more solid Hope. Given a fairly early case, and three years, and recovery was in the offing. And so we went on cheerfully with Davos. But Davos was not for every one; nor was every case an early 'one. Then came the discovery that lower altitudes would do if certain conditions were obtained; and so arose the great sanatorium movement. But slowly we found that patients could not spend their lives in sanatoriums; and one day on making my way up to one of them in England, I met on the way patient after patient, slouching along, bored to death with themselves and with each other; and even worse in morale than in body. Better discipline and better notions of thera peutics mended some of that; still I could not forget those listless saunterers, and it became evident to some of us, however unwillingly, that Hope was drooping again. The sanatorium was doing a great educative work no doubt; but at the end of its four or six months - what then? To send the patient away with recommendations about light jobs, and a regime, was almost a mockery or quite. What about the wage, and the family to be supported? The next lesson was brought home to me by a visit with other commissioners to certain cities, concerning some such problems. Before me now I see a gaunt hollow-eyed man, coughing, and leaning against the wall as he tried to talk to us, saying that his mates when he came out of the sanatorium - good fellows as they were - had bought him a milk that he might creep round, and earn a bit. The brave wife, shawl on head and mill apron on, had just come from the factory, and apologised for the dirty house - as well she might. The poor thing was working all day at the factory to keep the wolf from the door. All being dragged down together into the pit! What is the value of a good house, or a clean house, if no wages! What is there for the children? And what is to stop the infection! Who then would have the imagination, the initiative, the business capacity, to lift this burden, like lifting a world? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

In Segregating Sound, Karl Hagstrom Miller argues that the categories that we have inherited to think and talk about southern music bear little relation to the ways that southerners long played and heard music. Focusing on the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth, Miller chronicles how southern music—a fluid complex of sounds and styles in practice—was reduced to a series of distinct genres linked to particular racial and ethnic identities. The blues were African American. Rural white southerners played country music. By the 1920s, these depictions were touted in folk song collections and the catalogs of “race” and “hillbilly” records produced by the phonograph industry. Such links among race, region, and music were new. Black and white artists alike had played not only blues, ballads, ragtime, and string band music, but also nationally popular sentimental ballads, minstrel songs, Tin Pan Alley tunes, and Broadway hits. In a cultural history filled with musicians, listeners, scholars, and business people, Miller describes how folklore studies and the music industry helped to create a “musical color line,” a cultural parallel to the physical color line that came to define the Jim Crow South. Segregated sound emerged slowly through the interactions of southern and northern musicians, record companies that sought to penetrate new markets across the South and the globe, and academic folklorists who attempted to tap southern music for evidence about the history of human civilization. Contending that people’s musical worlds were defined less by who they were than by the music that they heard, Miller challenges assumptions about the relation of race, music, and the market.

Written in both English and French, The 9.5mm Vintage Film Encyclopaedia provides a single-volume, comprehensive catalogue of all known 9.5mm film releases, including: Films: Comprising 12,460 individual entries, this A-Z reference index provides the main listing for each film and its origin where known, along with additional information including cast and crew, and cross references to other relevant material. People: This index of all known actors and film crew, comprising over 12,000 names, provides a listing which is cross referenced to the main entry for each original film they worked on. Numbers: Pathé-Baby/Pathéscope and other distributors’ catalogue numbers, film length, release dates (where known) and the series in which the films were organised, are set out in detail. With a foreword from eminent film historian and filmmaker, Keith Brownlow, this extensively researched text explains the importance of the 9.5mm film, from its beginnings in the early 1920s to becoming synonymous with Home Cinema throughout Europe. Readers will also find a brief technical explanation on how 9.5mm films were produced, along with relevant images.

This book explores the fascinating world of the record business, its technology, the music and the musicians from Edison's phonograph to the compact disc. The great artists - Caruso, Toscanini, Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley and their successors - all achieved fame through the medium of records, and in turn have influenced the recording industry. But just as important are the record producers, those invisible figures who decide from behind the scenes how a record will sound. The history of recording is also the history of record companies: the book follows the vicissitudes of the multinational giants, without neglecting the small pioneering labels which have brought valuable new talents to the fore.