Recording of Alexander Melville Bell's voice on a graphophone, 1881

What it is

This is an audio recording of Alexander Melville Bell's voice, made on a graphophone at the Volta Laboratory on 10 September 1881. The recording was lost for a time and was discovered again in 2011. It is a sound file, so students hear it through a modern playback, not through the original machine.

Why it matters

Alexander Melville Bell was the father of Alexander Graham Bell. Recording him at the Volta Laboratory shows that the family and its work on sound were closely linked. A surviving voice from 1881 lets listeners come closer to someone who lived more than a century ago. Because the recording was lost and then found, it also shows how fragile early sound records are and how much of the past may be missing.

Look closer

• What can you learn from a voice that you cannot learn from a written description of the same person?
• Why was this recording made at the Volta Laboratory, and who might have chosen to record him?
• What is lost when a recording like this disappears for many years?