Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville

{{Short description|French printer and inventor (1817–1879)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2026}} {{Infobox person | honorific_prefix = | name = Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville | honorific_suffix = | image = T6- d640 - Fig. 468. — Léon Scott.png | caption = Portrait from ''Les Merveilles de la science'' by Louis Figuier | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date|1817|04|25|df=y}} | birth_place = Paris, France | death_date = {{Death date and age|1879|04|26|1817|04|25|df=y}}<ref name=pma /> | death_place = Paris, France | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates =  | monuments = | other_names = | education = | alma_mater = | occupation = {{Plainlist| * Printer * Bookseller }} | years_active = | employer = | organization = | agent = | known_for = Inventing the earliest known sound recording device | notable_works = | style = | television = | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | relatives = | awards = }}

'''Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville''' ({{IPA|fr|e.dwaʁ.le.ɔ̃ skɔt də maʁ.tɛ̃.vil|}}; 25 April 1817 – 26 April 1879<ref name=pma>{{Cite web|title= The First Human Voice on Record: Scott de Martinville and a Recording Decoded 150 Years Later|url= https://pmamagazine.org/the-first-human-voice-on-record-scott-de-martinville-and-a-recording-decoded-150-years-later/|website=PMA Magazine|date=14 February 2026|last=Meunier-Plante|first=Olivier|access-date=9 April 2026}}</ref>) was a French printer, bookseller and inventor.

He invented the earliest known sound recording device, the phonautograph, which was patented in France on 25 March 1857. Despite his innovation, he received little recognition during his lifetime, and his work was largely forgotten until the early 21st century, when phonautograph recordings made in 1860 were rediscovered and played back in 2008.<ref name="Schoenherr">{{cite news|first=Steven E.|last=Schoenherr| url=http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/scott.html |title=Leon Scott and the Phonautograph |work=Recording Technology History|url-status=dead|publisher=University of San Diego|access-date=27 March 2008|archivedate=7 February 2018|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180207234442/http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/scott.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Oldest recorded voices sing again. |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7318180.stm |publisher=BBC |date=28 March 2008 |access-date=29 March 2008 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Sound Recording Predates Edison Phonograph |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89148959|publisher=National Public Radio |access-date=5 April 2008 }}</ref>

== Early years == As a printer by trade, he was able to read accounts of the latest scientific discoveries and became an inventor. Scott de Martinville was interested in recording the sound of human speech in a way similar to that achieved by the then-new technology of photography for light and image. He hoped for a form of stenography that could record the whole of a conversation without any omissions. His earliest interest was in an improved form of stenography, and he was the author of several papers on shorthand and a history of the subject (1849).<ref name="Hankins" />

He was married twice and had six children.{{Cn|date=April 2026}}

== Phonautograph == [[File:Phonautograph 1909.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Illustration of a phonautograph. The inside of the barrel is made of Plaster of Paris.]] From 1853, he became fascinated in a mechanical means of transcribing vocal sounds. While proofreading some engravings for a physics textbook, he came across drawings of the human ear. He sought to mimic the working in a mechanical device, substituting an elastic membrane for the tympanum, a series of levers for the ossicle, which moved a stylus he proposed would press on a paper, wood, or glass surface covered in lampblack. On 26 January 1857, he delivered his design in a sealed envelope to the Académie Française.<ref name="Hankins">{{cite book |last=Hankins |first=Thomas L. |author2=Robert J. Silverman |title=Instruments and the Imagination |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O9e_7E22caAC&pg=PA263 |year=1995 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=0-691-00549-4 |pages=133 to 135 }}</ref> On 25 March 1857, he received French patent #17,897/31,470 for the phonautograph.<ref name="Phonatographic">{{cite web | url=http://www.firstsounds.org/public/Phonautographic-Manuscripts.pdf | title=The Phonautographic Manuscripts of Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville | translator-first=Patrick | translator-last=Feaster | first=Édouard-Léon Scott | last=de Martinville}}</ref>{{rp|13, footnote 85}}

To collect sound, the phonautograph used a horn attached to a diaphragm which vibrated a stiff bristle which inscribed an image on a lampblack-coated, hand-cranked cylinder. Scott built several devices with the help of acoustic instrument maker Rudolph Koenig.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/historyculture/origins-of-sound-recording-edouard-leon-scott-de-martinville.htm|title=Origins of Sound Recording: The Inventors|date=2017|website=www.nps.gov}}</ref> Unlike Thomas Edison's later invention of 1877, the phonograph, the phonautograph created only visual images of the sound and did not have the ability to play back its recordings. Instead, it captured sound waves visually on paper, allowing for the visualization of sound vibrations, which he called phonautograms.<ref name="BBCNews">{{cite web |date=28 March 2008 |title=Oldest recorded voices sing again |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7318180.stm |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417185139/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7318180.stm |archivedate=17 April 2022 |access-date=13 July 2022 |publisher=BBC News |language=en}}</ref><ref name="NPR">{{cite web |date=27 March 2008 |title=Sound Recording Predates Edison Phonograph |url=https://www.npr.org/2008/03/27/89148959/sound-recording-predates-edison-phonograph |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220526211443/https://www.npr.org/2008/03/27/89148959/sound-recording-predates-edison-phonograph |archivedate=26 May 2022 |access-date=13 July 2022 |work=All Things Considered |language=en-US |via=NPR}}</ref> Scott de Martinville's intention was for the device's waves to be read by humans as one would read text, which proved unfeasible.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://time.com/5084599/first-recorded-sound/|title=What Was the First Sound Ever Recorded by a Machine?|magazine=Time|author=Fabry, Merrill|language=en-US|url-status=live|date=1 May 2018|access-date=26 May 2022|archivedate=2 May 2018|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180502171522/https://time.com/5084599/first-recorded-sound/}}</ref>

By 1857, with support from the Société d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale, the phonautograph had advanced to a point where it could record sounds with sufficient accuracy. This development led to its adoption by the scientific community for various studies and experiments.<ref name="firstsounds">{{cite web |date=27 March 2008 |title=First Sounds |url=http://www.firstsounds.org |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171231194515/http://www.firstsounds.org/ |archive-date=31 December 2017 |access-date=24 May 2017 |website=FirstSounds.ORG}}</ref> It proved useful in the study of vowel sounds and was used by Franciscus Donders, Heinrich Schneebeli and Rene Marage. It also initiated further research into tools able to image sound, such as Koenig's manometric flame.<ref name="Hankins" /> He was not, however, able to profit from his invention, and spent the remainder of his life as a bookseller dealing in prints and photographs, at 9 Rue Vivienne in Paris.<ref name="Schoenherr"/>

Scott de Martinville also became interested in the relationship between linguistics, people's names and their character, and published a paper on the subject (1857).<ref name="Hankins"/>

== Rediscovery of the ''Au clair de la lune'' recording == {{Listen | filename = Au Clair de la Lune (1860).ogg | title = Au clair de la lune | description = Earliest recognizable recording of the human voice, from 9 April 1860 (played at incorrect speed). <ref name="firstsounds_scott">{{Cite web |title=The Phonautograms of Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville |url=https://www.firstsounds.org/sounds/scott.php |access-date=2 September 2023 |website=FirstSounds.ORG}}</ref> | filename2 = 1860-Scott-Au-Clair-de-la-Lune-05-09.ogg | title2 = Au clair de la lune | description2 = The recording slowed down to match what is now believed to be the correct speed; the result reveals a man's voice, presumably Scott's. }} Before March 2008, it was widely believed that Thomas Edison's phonograph was the first sound reproduction system. However, that year, phonautograms created by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville were discovered and revived by First Sounds, an informal collaborative of American audio historians, recording engineers, and sound archivists.<ref name="BBCNews2">{{cite web |date=28 March 2008 |title=Oldest recorded voices sing again |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7318180.stm |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417185139/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7318180.stm |archivedate=17 April 2022 |access-date=13 July 2022 |publisher=BBC News |language=en}}</ref><ref name="NYT2008">{{cite news |author=Jody Rosen |date=27 March 2008 |title=Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/arts/27soun.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170701101057/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/arts/27soun.html |archive-date=1 July 2017 |access-date=23 February 2017 |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> The recording was converted from "squiggles on paper" to a playable digital audio file with the IRENE technology, developed by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.<ref name="iht">{{cite news |last=Rosen |first=Jody |date=27 March 2008 |title=Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/arts/27soun.html?hp |access-date=27 March 2008 |work=The New York Times}}</ref> ''The New York Times'' reported the playback of a phonautogram recorded on 9 April 1860.<ref name="iht" />

The recording, part of the French folk song ''Au clair de la lune'' ("By the Light of the Moon"),<ref name=PierrotLunaire>The melody is also that of the ancient "Response Before the Gospel" used during the Lenten season by the Catholic Church; it is first sung by a single congregant, then repeated, melody and lyric, by everyone attending the day’s Mass. In English translation, its words are "[By] Your Cross and Ressurrection,/ You Have Set Us Free".</ref> was initially played at a speed that produced what seemed to be a 10-second recording of the voice of a woman or child singing at an ordinary musical tempo. The researchers leading the project later found that a misunderstanding about an included reference frequency had resulted in a doubling of the correct playback speed, and that it was actually a 20-second recording of a man, possibly Scott himself, singing the song very slowly.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.usnews.com/articles/science/2009/06/01/earliest-known-sound-recordings-revealed.html|title=Earliest Known Sound Recordings Revealed|work=U.S. News & World Report}}</ref> It is now the earliest known intelligible recording of singing in existence, predating, by 28 years, several 1888 Edison wax cylinder phonograph recordings of a massed chorus performing Handel's oratorio ''Israel in Egypt''.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130121191004/http://www.webrarian.co.uk/crystalpalace/crystal14.html The 1888 Crystal Palace recordings]</ref> However, the recording went largely unnoticed and was overshadowed by Thomas Edison's phonograph, which famously recorded "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

Fifty of Scott de Martinville's recordings and associated notes were added to the UNESCO Memory of the World register in 2015.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Humanity's First Recordings of its Own Voice: The Phonautograms of Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville (c.1853-1860) |url=https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/humanitys-first-recordings-its-own-voice-phonautograms-edouard-leon-scott-de-martinville-c1853-1860 |access-date=10 September 2025 |website=UNESCO Memory of the World}}</ref>

== Additional recordings == thumb|right|Additional recordings include tuning fork, Au Clair de la lune, opening lines of Torquato Tasso's pastoral drama Aminta, Vocal scale and Fly, little bee.<ref name="firstsounds_scott"></ref> A phonautogram by Scott containing the opening lines of Torquato Tasso's pastoral drama ''Aminta'', has also been found. Recorded around 1860, probably after the recording of ''Au clair de la lune'', this phonautogram is now the earliest known recording of intelligible human speech.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.usnews.com/articles/science/2009/06/01/earliest-known-sound-recordings-revealed.html|title=Earliest Known Sound Recordings Revealed Researchers unveil imprints made 20 years before Edison invented phonograph|last=Cowen|first=Ron |date=1 June 2009|work=Science News|publisher=U.S. News & World Report|access-date=26 June 2009}}</ref> Recordings of Scott's voice made in 1857 have also survived, but they are only unintelligible snippets.<ref name="Leon">{{cite web |last1=Orbin |first1=Joe |title=Leon Scott's COMPLETE DISCOGRAPHY (1853 - 1860) |url=https://youtube.com/watch?v=uRbIJc05QTA&t=65s |website=YouTube |publisher=FirstSounds.org |access-date=20 March 2019}}</ref> However, since then one of these recordings (1857 cornet scale recording) has been restored, and earlier records from 1853 experiments have been found and conserved.<ref name="Leon" /><ref>{{cite web |last1=Orbin |first1=Joe |title=Restored ! 1857 Cornet Scale Recording |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMdL7ZI5TdM |website=YouTube |publisher=FirstSounds.org |access-date=20 March 2019}}</ref>

Scott's phonautograms were selected by the Library of Congress as a 2010 addition to the National Recording Registry, which selects recordings annually that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Lost Language, Political Voices and Earliest Known Recording Among 25 Named to the National Recording Registry |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-11-073/new-entries-to-the-national-recording-registry/2011-04-06/ |access-date=21 June 2022 |website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA}}</ref>

== Abraham Lincoln recording myth == It has been claimed that in 1863, Scott's phonautograph was used to make a recording of Abraham Lincoln's voice at the White House.<ref>{{cite web| title= In Love With Technology, as Long as It's Dusty | url= https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9804EFDE1630F936A15750C0A96F958260 | first= Katie | last=Hafner| date=25 March 1999 |work=The New York Times| access-date=23 February 2013}}</ref> There is no solid evidence that such a recording ever existed. Scott did not visit the US in the 1860s and therefore could not have recorded Lincoln himself, as one version of the legend claims he did.<ref name=Lost>{{cite web| url= http://www.firstsounds.org/features/lincoln.php |title= The 'Lost' Tracing of Lincoln's Voice|publisher = FirstSounds.org| access-date=23 February 2013}}</ref>

== Publications == * ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=dLUIAAAAQAAJ {{lang|fr|Jugement d'un ouvrier sur les romans et les feuilletons à l'occasion de Ferrand et Mariette}}]'' (1847) * ''[https://archive.org/details/histoiredelast00scot {{lang|fr|Histoire de la sténographie depuis les temps anciens jusqu'à nos jours}}]'' (1849) * ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=p7hrAAAAMAAJ {{lang|fr|Les Noms de baptême et les prénoms}}]'' (1857) * ''[http://www.phonozoic.net/fs/First-Sounds-Working-Paper-03a.pdf {{lang|fr|Fixation graphique de la voix}}]'' (1857) * ''[http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6354206q.texteImage {{lang|fr|Notice sur la vie et les travaux de M. Adolphe-Noël Desvergers}}]'' * ''[https://archive.org/details/EssaiDeClassificationMethodiqueEtS {{lang|fr|Essai de classification méthodique et synoptique des romans de chevalerie inédits et publiés. Premier appendice au catalogue raisonné des livres de la bibliothèque de M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot}}]'' (1870) * ''[http://www.firstsounds.org/public/First-Sounds-Working-Paper-05.pdf {{lang|fr|Le Problème de la parole s'écrivant elle-même. La France, l'Amérique}}]'' (1878)

== References == {{reflist}}

== Further reading == * Helmholtz, Hermann. ''On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music''. Translated by Alexander J. Ellis. London: Longmans, Green, 1875, p. 20. * ''History of the Phonautograph'' Marco, Guy A., editor. ''Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound in the United States''. New York: Garland, 1993, p. 615 * Winston, Brian. ''Media Technology and Society: a History from the Telegraph to the Internet''. New York : Routledge, 1998.

== External links == * [http://www.firstsounds.org/ FirstSounds.org], including [http://www.firstsounds.org/public/Phonautographic-Manuscripts.pdf ''The Phonautographic Manuscripts of Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville'']

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scott, Leon}} Category:1817 births Category:1879 deaths Category:19th-century French businesspeople Category:19th-century French inventors Category:French people of Scottish descent Category:People from Paris Category:French booksellers Category:French printers Category:History of sound recording Category:Memory of the World Register in France