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Before the Playlist: The Work Behind America’s Recorded Sound

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Culture & Life · An archival listening room Before the Playlist The work behind America’s recorded sound Ten archival photographs reveal how America’s recorded sound grew from a fragile invention into work, entertainment, and memory. Peter Bacigalupi’s San Francisco arcade, 1895. Photographer uncredited · Thomas Edison NHP / NPS · Public domain · 1895 Ten photographs · One way to listen closer Machines / People / Rooms / Memory 01 / The public room A public room came before a private playlist Ten archival photographs reveal how America’s recorded sound grew from a fragile invention into work, entertainment, and memory. Before there was a playlist, there was somewhere to go. Peter Bacigalupi’s San Francisco arcade, photographed in 1895, placed phonographs beside kinetoscopes and gramophones. Cabinets, signs, counters, and narrow aisles organized an encounter with recorded entertainment. The National Park Service identifies the scene as an arcade, not a private parlor. That d...

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