A Most Valuable Medium

"Bauman is a master of his craft. A Most Valuable Medium enables us to benefit from his vast accumulated knowledge and insights as he explores the early world of phonographic recordings of spoken genres, from street-corner sales pitches to country store tall tales. His is a decidedly important contribution to understanding the rise of broadcasting, which has been widely assumed to begin with the advent of radio in 1920. It is also a major contribution to our understanding of the discourse processes of decontextualization and circulation that are central to the constitution and maintenance of modern public spheres."—Greg Urban, University of Pennsylvania

"A Most Valuable Medium brings an exquisitely tuned analytical ear to a rich collection of understudied but foundational media performances. Richard Bauman's seminal approach to verbal performance sheds new light on commercial recordings at the dawn of modern media, providing a model of historically specific intermedial scholarship and producing a cornucopia of insights about how sales pitches, political oratory, storytelling, and sermons were adapted for the phonograph. A most valuable book!"—Jacob Smith, Northwestern University