In 1880 Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter, formed the Volta Laboratory Association. This was set up with prize money Bell received from the French Academy of Science in recognition of his invention of the telephone. Bell and Edison had been working from the same offices as 203 Broadway, New York City until this point.

In the early development of the phonograph, Bell-Tainter deposited a wooden box in the Smithsonian Institute with the a statement typed and sealed to the base of the box. Why they did this remains open to speculation, though popular theory is that they intended to time stamp the development of their work while Edison held patent on aspects of development. They deposit the box in October 1881 with newpapers from the day, notes and sketches of their intended sound recording machine, and a working model of what is later to be known as the first Graphophone. The box is sealed, however the Dictaphone Corporation request it is opened in 1937, and attached to the bottom of the Graphophone is presumed to be a transcript of its first recording:

'G-r-r-G-r-r- There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamed of in our philosophy-G-r-r-I am a graphophone and my mother was a phonograph.-"

This went on to become one of Dictaphone's biggest advertising campaigns as "The voice that was buried for 56 years"

Madeleine Donovan, Intern, October, 2009

References
V.K. Chew, Science Museum Talking Machines, Her Majesty's Stationary Office, London, 1981
David Morton, Off The Record, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey & London, 2000
Oliver Read and Walter Welch, From Tin Foil to Stereo, Howard Sams & Co., New York, 1959
Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past, Duke University Pres, Durham & London, 2003

+ Cylinder shaving machines
+ Edison, Thomas A

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