Smithsonian Folkways - Save Our Sounds

Save Our Sounds

In 2003, Smithsonian Folkways, in conjunction with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, began a project called “Save Our Sounds” that aims at preserving the sounds vital to our nation’s history which are deteriorating, such as Thomas Edison’s recordings made on wax cylinders and others done on acetate discs in the early 20th century. The Save America’s Treasures program initiated by the White House Millennium Council awarded a matching grant of $750,000 for the project. The goal of the project is to expose the nation to the need for sound preservation, and to protect the most important and “priceless” records from the combined collections.