Tag Archives: 78s

Vanishing Culture: On 78s

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The following guest post from audio preservation expert George Blood is part of our Vanishing Culture series, highlighting the power and importance of preservation in our digital age.

Thomas Edison produces the first machine that can record and playback sound in 1877. The flat disc is first patented in 1888. The concept is very simple: a sound wave is captured on the record as a physical wave in the disc, most often shellac (the shell of the lac beetle). Most discs spin at approximately 78 rpm, hence the name 78s. Other speeds, such as 80, 90 and 100 rpm are not uncommon. In addition to speed, the equalization and stylus size varies – either to improve the sound or to dodge someone else’s patent. In the 1950s they slowly give way to the LP or microgroove record, though in some parts of the world they remain common well into the 1960s.

Why is it important to preserve 78rpm discs?

The cultural record of the 20th century is different from all other periods of human history by the presence of audiovisual recordings. Prior to 1877, there was no way to record the sound of a nursery rhyme being read at bedtime, a musical or theatrical performance, or the world around us. During the ensuing 147 years, formats came and went as technology and preferences changed. Yet for nearly half that time, 78rpm discs were the way we learned about each other and entertained the world. It was a time when the world became a much smaller place. The invention of the automobile and the airplane, the expansion of the railroads, the telephone and radio, to the dawn of the space age, 78s were there. Through 78s, we could hear traditional music from Hawaii long before it was a state. American popular music – jazz, fox trot, big bands, even the Beatles – spread out across the globe, well ahead of Hollywood, and long before television. A thousand people might attend a concert, a theater performance, a speech, or a dramatic reading by Charles Dickens. With the 78, it became possible for those experiences to be shared and repeated, and spread far and wide, not once and done.

The period of 78s doesn’t just parallel other historical developments. The sounds on 78s document cultural norms, performance practices, tastes, and the interests of people who, after centuries of drudgery and lives spent in the fields and hard labor, finally had free time. My mother liked to remind me that nothing tells you more about a person than what makes them laugh. The comedy routines and lyrics give us a window into a time when groups of people were preyed upon, disparaged, and disrespected in stereotypes and bigotry, which shines a mirror on how we can still do better to our fellow beings. We hear the buoyant sounds of the roaring ‘20s, a happy, hopeful time, of liberation and greed. Music borne of the heavy hand of oppression and poverty that conveys gospel, blues, and gives us jazz—all quintessentially American. On 78s, we can hear and learn of the other peoples of the world: of ragas and gamalans, performers who do not traverse great oceans, the cultures of foreign lands we could only read about. We can feel the despondency of the Great Depression in the songs that empathize with the struggles of a nation. Through 78s we can hear firsthand accounts of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the angry, vile speeches of dictators, the songs that inspired a once divided nation to pull together in a common cause against evil, to fight for peace for our time, for days that will live in infamy. Bursting out of the war to end all wars, big bands, swing, then rock n’ roll. It makes one long to hear Bach play the organ, Mozart play the piano, Paganini play the violin, or Orpheus beg for the turn of Euridice, and know, that if we preserved these 78rpm recordings, future generations will understand our joys and pains, to have a window, through sound, into the arc of history, the slow advance of progress of the human condition.

To remember half of recorded history, it is important to preserve 78rpm discs.

About the author

George Blood is an expert in the audio and video preservation industry.

Internet Archive Responds to Recording Industry Lawsuit Targeting Obsolete Media

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Late Friday, some of the world’s largest record labels, including Sony and Universal Music Group, filed a lawsuit against the Internet Archive and others for the Great 78 Project, a community effort for the preservation, research and discovery of 78 rpm records that are 70 to 120 years old. As a non-profit library, we take this matter seriously and are currently reviewing the lawsuit with our legal counsel.

A 78 rpm player in the foyer of the Internet Archive.

Of note, the Great 78 Project has been in operation since 2006 to bring free public access to a largely forgotten but culturally important medium. Through the efforts of dedicated librarians, archivists and sound engineers, we have preserved hundreds of thousands of recordings that are stored on shellac resin, an obsolete and brittle medium. The resulting preserved recordings retain the scratch and pop sounds that are present in the analog artifacts; noise that modern remastering techniques remove.

Statement from Brewster Kahle, digital librarian of the Internet Archive:
“When people want to listen to music they go to Spotify. When people want to study 78rpm sound recordings as they were originally created, they go to libraries like the Internet Archive. Both are needed. There shouldn’t be conflict here.”

These preservation recordings are used in teaching and research, including by university professors like Jason Luther of Rowan University, whose students use the Great 78 collection as the basis for researching and writing podcasts for use in class assignments (University Professor Leverages 78rpm Record Collection From the Internet Archive for Student Podcasts, June 9, 2021). While this mode of access is important, usage is tiny—on average, each recording in the collection is only accessed by one researcher per month.

A technician uses a 4-arm turntable to digitize a 78 rpm record.

While we review the lawsuit, we remain dedicated to our mission of providing “Universal Access to All Knowledge.” We are grateful for the continued support of our library patrons and partners as we continue to fight these attacks.

For more information or media inquiries, please contact press@archive.org. 

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Bowling Green State University Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives partners with Internet Archive

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BGSU Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives partners with Internet Archive to provide digital access to thousands of historic recordings 

The BGSU Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives, one of the largest collections of popular music at an academic institution in the United States, has partnered with the Internet Archive’s Great 78 Project to digitize thousands of records made in the early 20th century.  

The University’s collection of over 100,000 of these discs represents one of the largest collections processed by the Internet Archive’s Great 78 Project, a program dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of these early recordings.  

The recordings from the BGSU Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives’ collection trace the history of the recording industry in the United States, including many standard popular and jazz tunes, as well as more niche materials.

Browse the Bowling Green State University 78rpm Collection at Internet Archive.

Many of the less-common items, such as recordings made by and for immigrant and minoritized groups in the United States, children’s recordings and novelty records, are only available on the original recordings since they were never released on LP, CD or digital streaming services. The collection establishes a digital record of underrepresented artists. It also reflects the cultural and political atmospheres of each time period in which the original material was pressed, meaning that some of the materials included reflect stereotypes and language that may be offensive to today’s listeners. These materials do not represent the values of Bowling Green State University, University Libraries, and Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives.  

Digital versions of these records created through the partnership make it easier for BGSU to provide on-campus access to the recordings while adding those digital files to the thousands already digitized by the Great 78 Project.  

Early phonograph records were made to spin at 78 revolutions per minute (rpm) and were the most common format for sound recordings in the United States from the early 1900s until the early 1950s. Because of their age and the developing practices of the early sound recording industry, these discs require specialized equipment for modern playback and, unlike modern LPs, often require the attention of a professional audio engineer to coax optimal sound quality from the aging records.   

“The pace at which George Blood LC, the vendor working with the Great 78 Project, began processing and digitizing the collection was astounding,” said Dr. David Lewis, a former sound archivist at the Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives. “Within two months, they had digitized and uploaded thousands of recordings to the Bowling Green 78 rpm Collection page. That same work would have taken years longer to complete in-house at BGSU. Working with the Great 78 Project has the added benefit of contributing the University’s materials to a global network of fans, researchers and listeners alongside many other collections of 78 rpm discs.”   

The digital files created from BGSU Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives’ 78 rpm discs will be preserved by the Internet Archive and made available for online listening and downloading from the Internet Archive’s BGSU collection page.  

In addition, staff at the Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives will begin work to preserve copies of selected digital items from the project at BGSU, providing additional safeguards for Ohio-related content and other rare and unique recordings that align with major collecting areas in the sound archives as well as faculty research and teaching.    

The wide access provided by the Internet Archive’s Great 78 Project, combined with the rare and unique material contributed to the project by BGSU, will add to the depth and breadth of material available both on campus and through the Internet Archive.   

Reposted with permission from BGSU News.

University Professor Leverages 78rpm Record Collection From the Internet Archive for Student Podcasts

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Examples of music & musicians covered by The Phono Project include, from left: John Lee Hooker, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Johnny Cash

When professor Jason Luther wants students in his Intro to Writing Arts class to learn about multimodal composition, he has them go to the Internet Archive for inspiration.

Students peruse 78rpm records going back to the early 20th century to find just the right one for their assignment. There is no lack of material with more than 300,000 recordings  from 1898 through the 1950s preserved. They are available to the public because of the collaborative Great 78 Project.

Although the students are enrolled at Rowan University in New Jersey, many are participating remotely from their homes this year because of the pandemic, and the materials are conveniently available digitally to them from anywhere.

Professor Jason Luther of The Phono Project.

“If the [Great 78 Project] didn’t exist, I don’t think I would have this curriculum at all,” said Luther, assistant professor for Writing Arts in the Ric Edelman College of Communication & Creative Arts at Rowan. “What I really like is the research challenge. It’s really powerful. So many times students have recovered the lost histories of these songs.”

For The Phono Project, Rowan students create podcasts and social media posts about recordings in the Archive’s 78s collection. They also tap into primary sources on the Archive to write the history of the songs. They can write about the stories behind songs like the Billie Holiday classic “God Bless the Child,” or John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen” from 1948. Many gravitate to artists like Elvis Presley or Frank Sinatra, but Luther tries to get them to branch out—especially now that there are more than 200 stories in the project’s collection.

Luther developed the project in 2018 as part of the “Technologies and Future of Writing” module in the writing course. Students have just eight classes to complete the 1-3 minute podcasts, in which they learn to master a mix of audio tools and editing skills using Audacity and WordPress. The course covers issues of compatibility and ownership, along with instruction on the economy of writing like a critic about lyrics and culture. For one recent class session, he invited Liz Rosenberg of the Archive to be a guest speaker and talk about the organization’s work and the Great 78 Project.

In the future, Luther said he would like to find more ways to incorporate some of the Archive’s collection into his curriculum. For instance, he may have students use primary source documents from independent publishers over time to craft something tangible, such as an actual history from those materials that could be passed along. “That’s one of the neat things about accretion,” he said. “We have the creativity, but then there’s also documents on the Archive that are helping us understand the 78s themselves. It’s such a vast resource.”

Visit The Phono Project.

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Incorporating materials from the Internet Archive into your course curriculum is easy. Each semester we hear from instructors doing so worldwide. Let us know how you are weaving Internet Archive media into your classes by writing to us at info@archive.org.