Study of Speech and Hearing at Bell Telephone Laboratories:
The Fletcher Years
Correspondence Files (1917-1933) and Internal Reports
Complied by
Christine M. Rankovic and Jont B. Allen

Table of Contents

  • Correspondence Files (1917-1933)

  • Historical Documents

  • Laboratory Notes

  • Bibliographs by author: Internal Documents, Publications

  • Selected photographs of Members of Technical Staff Images

  • Technical Memo indes for case 320311

    • INTRODUCTION

    During the first half of the 20th century, Bell Telephone Laboratories carried out an extensive research program aimed at improving the quality of telephone speech. This effort was led by physicist Harvey Fletcher, who also served as the first president of the Acoustical Society of America. The contributions of Fltecher and his colleagues helped produce not only the world's leading telephone system, but also created the foundationsof today's speech and hearing science field. An historical and technical reveiw of these years has been reviewed in a Journal of the Acoustical Society of America article by Jont Allen(JASA, 1996, April, pp1825-1839), included on this CDROM.

    This compact disc(CDROM) contains nearly 10,000 scanned pages of internal research documents from Western Electric and Bell Telephone Laboratories and Speech and Hearing, covering the period of 1917-1933. Selected historical documents and notebooks of researcher R. H. Galt covering 1938-1952 are also included. This entire collection of documents was recently discovered at the AT&T Archives in Warren, NJ, and is published here for the first time. The majority of documents are scientific reports showing the extraordinary thining and insight of these world-class researchers. In addition to their historical importance, the documents also provide technical insight and clarity on topics of current interest to speech and hearing scientists.

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    © 1998 Acoustical Society of America