Did Edison record Whitman?

Archivists at the Thomas Edison National Historic Park turned up two documents relating to a potential Edison recording of Walt Whitman. Both are dated 14 Feb. 1889. The first is from Edison's private secretary Alfred O. Tate to Sylvester Baxter in which Tate writes that Edison himself had received Baxter's letter of 8 February "in regard to obtaining a phonographic record of the poet Whitman." Later the same day, Tate prepared a letter for Edison to Jesse H. Lippincott, the head of the North American Phonograph Co. Lippincott had recently purchased the Edison Phonograph Co. and represented Edison's phonograph interests. Tate attached Baxter's original letter and asked, on Edison's behalf, if Lippincott wished "to act upon this gentlemen's suggestion, and obtain a phonogram from the poet Whitman?" Read more...

Featured Document: Richard III

Edison was fond of the theater, especially Shakespeare, and it is said that the hunchbacked, conniving, and ruthless Richard III was his favorite character. Edison and his assistants sometimes used the full quotation, "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York," when testing telegraph, phonograph and telephone equipment.

See the notebook entries.

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