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ANCESTRY OF SOUND RECORDING 287
One man on a soap-box may inspire a small crowd but not a large one. His unaided vocal energy of ten-millionths of one watt is a puny implement. Compare ten-millionths of a watt to the energy of an ordinary 60 watt lamp, for example. Even 60 watts seems little enough. During the latter part of the war, in one of the Liberty Loan drives, New Yorkers will remember Liberty Lane. Liberty Lane was a section of Madison Avenue along which were located loud speakers connected through amplifiers to a microphone. Orators were few; the need for funds was great. One man at the microphone could thus address endless throngs in the street, broadcasting his message of patriotism and thrift. This was perhaps the first conspicuous demonstration of the public address system — a combination of microphone, amplifier and loud speakers. Public address systems were also used indoors at the presidential nominating conventions of 1920 and again outdoors at the inauguration of President Harding in 1921. Radio broadcasting came into being about this time, as stations WJZ and WEAF started their careers.
As far back as 1847 the idea of transmitting pictures over electric wires had been thought of. In 1908 Knudsen in Norway actually did it. True enough, the pioneer attempts were crude but considering the niceties of the devices required there is small wonder. In picture transmission each tiny dot of the original picture surface must be transmitted over wires, and must be deftly placed at exactly the corresponding needle point at the seceiving end and at exactly the same density. Light must be converted into electricity, sent over wires, and reconverted into light. In a number of the larger cities of the United States you can hand a photograph to a telegraph messenger, and an hour or two later have it delivered in another city thousands of miles away. Telephotography is pertinent to our subject because in this remarkable machine, developed by the Bell Telephone Laboratories, we find several of the problems later to be faced in the talkies, and several of the devices for their solution.
The year 1925 deserves a word because in that year electrically recorded phonograph records with reproducers and horns of scientific design placed a lagging phonograph industry once more on commercial feet. Also during the period of 1922 to 1925, successful examples of the modern commercial talking picture were shown. Two experiments of promise were the Phonofilm of DeForest and the General Electric Pallophotophone. In Europe, notably in Germany and Denmark, experiments in talkies had come to light. But posterity is never so much concerned with research and scientific demonstration as it is with commercial success.