A Victor Talking Machine and Records

A modern photograph shows a Victor Talking Machine, an early device to play sound recordings in a flat-disc record format. The Victor Talking Machine Company, located in Camden, New Jersey, helped pioneer this disc technology at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1927 the company recorded various Appalachian musicians—including the legendary country musicians Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family—in Bristol, on the Virginia-Tennessee border.

This Victor machine and records are included in the collections of the Hoard Historical Museum in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.