Sale 2489 - Artists & Amateurs: Photographs & Photobooks, October 18, 2018

349 349 c   (EDISON COMPANY—EDIPHONE) A company presentation album entitled EdisonDictation Services with 33 groundbreaking photographs documenting early use and designs for the Ediphone sound recording device. The album, which was likely used for sales or presentation purposes, highlights the broad use for Thomas Edison’s new-and-improved dictation machines. Alongside product photographs there are views of workplaces and offices utilizing the machine for audio-to-text transcription, including engineers recording data, executives dictating letters, and a surgeon in the operating room speaking into his Ediphone. Silver prints, the images measuring approximately 8x10 inches (20.3x25.4 cm.), and the reverse, linen-backed, a few with captions or inventory numbers in the negative. Oblong 4to, gilt-stamped black leatherette; twin-bolt binding. Circa 1912-27 [1,500/2,500] 350 c   (GAS & ELECTRIC) A handmade album with 58 photographs of plants, substations and gas works installed by the Luz Company Gas and Electric Corp. Showing various machinery and infrastructure that was erected for other companies throughout the Pennsylvania area. Numerous images show utility poles and electrical towers, photographed in a proto-modernist style. Silver prints, the images measuring 8x10 inches (20.3x25.4 cm.), and the reverse, nearly all with captions and the photographer’s credit in the negative, mounted recto only to tabbed card pages, each with a descriptive caption, and some with dates, in ink, on tab rectos. Hand-constructed 4to, brown card covers, with a handwritten title; ties. 1923-28 [1,200/1,800] 350