Bohemia on Record: Mapping Early Sound Recordings of Czech Settlers in the USA

Filip Šír is the coordinator of digitization of audio documents in the Digitization and New Media Department at the National Museum in Prague. In 2017, together with Gabriel Gössel, he was awarded the Certificate of Merit by the Association for Recorded Sound Collections for his contribution to historical research for the book Recorded Sound in Czech Lands 1900-1946. He is also the principal investigator of the New Phonograph project, which is a comprehensive effort to create universal audio preservation procedures for the Czech Republic. In his presentation, he will talk about the history of sound recordings by Czech immigrants to the USA in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and introduce his latest book, Bohemia on Records: Early Czech Sound Recordings in the United States.