As part of the Díaz Ayala Cuban & Latin American Music Collection, FIU Libraries houses rare phonograph cylinders, the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing audio. Invented by Thomas Alva Edison in 1877, the phonograph cylinder evolved over the next half century from early tinfoil models to more durable wax cylinders, and later to mass-produced celluloid versions. With continued refinements and successful duplication methods, cylinders came to dominate the recording industry in the early 1900s, before gradually declining in the 1910s. Thomas A. Edison, Inc., the last major producer of phonograph cylinders, ultimately ceased production in 1929 as flat disc records became the standard format. The Díaz Ayala cylinder collection includes recordings from the turn of the twentieth century, representing a diverse range of musical traditions and languages, with a significant representation of Latin American music from the period.
| Interested in being notified about new results for this query? |
|---|
| Set up a personal email alert or subscribe to the RSS feed. |