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THBDr. Clarence John Blake Archive, With Otology Notes Used in the Development of the Telephone
About Seller
6270 Este Ave.
Cincinnati , OH 45232
United States
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About Auction
LiveJun 26, 2020
Cowan's Auctions is delighted to present the June 26 American Historical Ephemera and Photography Auction, including 55 lots devoted to the African American experience, over 175 lots dating from the Civil War Era, and more than 60 lots documenting life in the American West. Cowan's Auctions dawnie@cowans.com
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- Lot Description
Dr. Clarence John Blake Archive, With Otology Notes Used in the Development of the Telephone
Archive of Dr. Clarence John Blake (1843-1919), a renowned otologist who notably assisted Alexander Graham Bell develop and perfect the telephone. Blake graduated from Harvard medical school in 1865 and the University of Vienna (Austria) in 1866. His Massachusetts medical board registration (1865) and both parchment diplomas are included in the archive, with his Harvard degree notably signed by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., both housed in a handsome leather canister stamped, "C.J. Blake M.D. / Harvard University / 1865." His passport, also included, indicates that he traveled extensively throughout Germany and Austria in the late 1860s.
In 1871, Dr. Blake first met Alexander Graham Bell when at a Boston School Board committee regarding methods for educating the deaf. When Bell approached Dr. Blake he found an eager and enthusiastic supporter of discovering methods to transmit speech electronically. Dr. Blake wrote of his contributions in the typed copy of a letter from June 27, 1906: "At that time I was already engaged in experiments on the tracing and study of sound waves produced by the voice and I fitted up an apparatus, made of a human drum-head, like the one I was using, for Mr. Bell to experiment with during the summer. In the autumn we compared our records and observations and then there followed, for a period of nearly a year, or until the problem of the invention was solved, a continued interchange of ideas on the subject of the electrical transmission of speech." Their relationship and the technical details of their developments are explored at length in "Chapter 5" of an unpublished biography typescript included in the archive. Perhaps of most interest in the archive, however, are two notebooks kept by Dr. Blake with his extensive notes and experiments with detailed technical drawings. He often makes note of where he has shared certain information with Bell.
In additional to his medical practice and work with Bell, Dr. Blake was the editor of the American Journal of Otology and the President of the American Otological Society.
Also included are several articles written by Dr. Blake, including The Logographic Value of Consonant Sounds in Relation to Their Transmission by Telephone. (New York: William Wood and Co., 1879), among others; a 53 page journal entry on loose paper, his last will and testament, and other assorted correspondence.
A small collection of correspondence from earlier in the 19th century from various relatives also accompanies the lot. Of particular note are two letters of introduction for Dr. Blake's father, John Harrison Blake, a prominent civil engineer who was traveling across Central and South America before returning to Boston. The first is written to Charles G. De Witt (1789-1839) on December 30, 1835 when he was the United States Chargé d'Affaires to Guatemala. The second is written on his return trip to Daniel Webster (1782-1852) in Boston on May 23, 1837 where it is noted that he has "visited Bolivia, Peru and Chile, and crossed the desert of Atacama and the Cordillera." - Shipping Info
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