Poster advertising Professor Faber’s talking machine, exhibited by P.T. Barnum during 1873 in his museum. The automaton was the first talking figure. From the Harry Houdini Collection.

In 1846, a German astronomer living in The United States named Joseph Faber unveiled his cutting-edge Euphonia at London’s Egyptian Hall, having accompanied P.T. Barnum across the Atlantic. Faber had spent the previous seventeen years perfecting this remarkable oddity, and had even dashed an earlier machine to bits out of frustration after American audiences failed to pay him much attention. A complex device controlled by seventeen levers, a bellows, and a telegraphic line, this machine was adorned with the movable replica of a human face, which was able to faithfully replicate the sounds of human speech. At the exhibition, Faber made the Euphonia sing a haunting rendition of “God Save the Queen.” [Source: http://ift.tt/1QtcFD5…]

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