The Talking Machine
Clare Briggs
Clare Briggs is a famous cartoonist who lived from 1875 to 1930. Poems by Wilbur Nesbitt.
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A Would-Be Buyer at an Automobile Show
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Are these Radios? It’s far too late for them to be gramophones…Report
No, it’s not too late for gramophones. “Uncle Josh Buys A Victrola” dates to 1919 and 78’s were still made well after 45’s and LP’s dominated. I’ve seen 78’s of Elvis Presley. But the picture looks like Edison cylinder machines, with private listening horns, which may have been a bit deliberately retro by 1922.Report
Thank you Carl, I was fumbling around trying to figure out what it was I was looking at. It just seemed, in my head, to be too late for gramaphones but a quick wiki search says ol’ Edison was kicking around until the 30’s. Man technology moves fast.Report
My grandparents had an old gramophone and I remember listening to their old 78’s as a child. One record was ‘Uncle Josh Buys an Automobile’ and ‘Uncle Josh and the Insurance Company’, which are available on YouTube along with many others, but I can’t find ‘Uncle Josh on the Midway’!
Other comedy routines included ‘No news or What Killed the Dog’ and ‘Cohen on the Telephone’. The only songs I remember were the novelty songs ‘So Long Oolong’ and its flip side ‘Oh By Jingo”. Seems to have been a penchant for dialect humor.Report
That is fascinating, thank you!Report