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My own understanding, though I am a obstreperous recluse, is that he 
made that cylinder recording on the exact same day he had his picture 
taken. He was actually making a Facebook page and wanted it to be as 
complete as possible. The service was then of course known as 
Visagepalimpsest.

AA


[log in to unmask] wrote:
>  
> In a message dated 11/3/2009 12:45:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> Folsom  bases his theory on a message that Edison wanted a recording of 
> Whitman who  also lived in New Jersey. 
>
>
> ------------------
> In the original APM article we also ran copies of the Feb  1889 
> correspondence between Sylvester Baxter and the NA Phono Co (A. O.  Tate). But it was 
> only an epistolary suggestion as nothing came of it.
>  
> Whitman's last years were covered in a Diary kept by Horace Traubel, and  
> there is no mention of such a (recording) event. The local newspapers kept 
> track  of Walt's doings (he was rather housebound toward the end of his life), 
> and are  curiously silent about WW intoning his voice for posterity. In Aug 
> of 1889, WW  did go out (in Philly), by carriage, to have his picture taken 
> and that was  noted. But when Haley was writing to Yale about the possible 
> purchase of his  "recordings", it was claimed that the WW "cylinder" was a 
> poem about  Lincoln!
>  
> If wishes were horses.... and other reasons why poetry critics should not  
> do phonographic research. Why was Haley unwilling to show anyone (ever) his  
> actual wax records - he had so many, such as Stowe, Cleveland, Whitman, 
> etc. How  does one prove a negative?
>  
> Allen
>  
>
>