Lee De Forest

For 50 years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first “mass medium.” In Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, Ken Burns examines the lives of three extraordinary men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success, and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity interacted in tragic ways. This is the story of Lee de Forest, a clergyman’s flamboyant son, who invented the audion tube; Edwin Howard Armstrong, a brilliant, withdrawn inventor who pioneered FM technology; and David Sarnoff, a hard-driving Russian immigrant who created the most powerful communications company on earth.

Early sound film featuring comedian Eddie Cantor.

A dainty combination of Music and Grace.

A dog gets ready for dinner as the story takes us into a sing-a-long with "My Old Kentucky Home". The first sound cartoon ever produced.

A dainty combination of music and grace.

Early music video.

Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake sing snappy songs.

Spanish dancer Conchita Piquer performs in a short film produced in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process.

British music hall entertainer Dick Henderson sings "I Love Her All the More" and trills out a resounding ode to his beloved in this early sound recording, stopping to aim some rather less romantic jibes at his wife before delivering a rousing encore.

'Billy Merson, the great Nottingham-born music hall performer, presents one of his signature numbers. The film clearly captures Merson's comic brilliance - he not only sings, but dances, skips and indulges in a lot of creative business with a lyre. Merson had been making films since 1915 and Desdemonia is often cited as Britain's first sound film.' (Robin Baker, BFI)

The first presidential film with sound recording.

Vaudeville stars Weber and Fields perform their famous pool hall routine in a short film produced in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process.

In his career, De Wolf Hopper recited Ernest Lawrence Thayer's "Casey at the Bat" thousands of times. Here, wearing a tuxedo, he emerges from behind a curtain as if at a theater, gives a short introduction, and launches into the poem. The camera is stationary, and although Hopper stands in one place, his hands and arms, his face, and his voice are animated throughout. In delivery, it's a minstrel performance.

Short introductory film demonstrating the novel sound-synchronized film technology, the "Phonofilm".

Blake plays his "Fantasy on Swanee River" (two takes of same piece, in different styles). The highest notes failed to record in this seminal experiment with synchronized sound.

The first colored talking picture ever made.

Follow the bouncing ball sing-along

A selection of images (a dog barking, a baby crying, and a musical scene), initially shown in silence, and then repeated with Phonofilm accompanying soundtrack to demonstrate the potential of the technology.