Clare Briggs / Comics

The Talking Machine

by Clare Briggs · April 8, 2020

Tags: 1925 Days of Real Sport Phones

Clare Briggs

Clare Briggs is a famous cartoonist who lived from 1875 to 1930. Poems by Wilbur Nesbitt.

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North says:

April 8, 2020 at 2:01 pm

Are these Radios? It’s far too late for them to be gramophones…Report
- Carl Schwent in reply to North says:
  
  April 8, 2020 at 2:45 pm
  
  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
  - North in reply to Carl Schwent says:
    
    April 8, 2020 at 2:57 pm
    
    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
Carl Schwent says:

April 8, 2020 at 2:34 pm

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
- North in reply to Carl Schwent says:
  
  April 8, 2020 at 2:58 pm
  
  That is fascinating, thank you!Report