Discography of American Historical Recordings
Welcome to the Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR), a database of master recordings made by American record companies during the 78rpm era. It is part of the American Discography Project (ADP)—an initiative of the University of California, Santa Barbara that is edited by a team of researchers based at the UCSB Library.
To begin your research, enter names, titles, places, matrix or catalog numbers below, or click on the advanced browse or search buttons above.
What's Online and What's Coming
DAHR is an expansion of the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (EDVR) incorporating previously published discographic data licensed from various publishers, folding them into the search and display framework of DAHR. Documentation of the activities of the Victor Talking Machine Company and RCA Victor derives primarily from consultation of publications of the companies and original documents held in the archives of Sony Music Entertainment in New York City. DAHR entries describing recordings made by Columbia Records, the Berliner Gramophone Co., OKeh Records, Zonophone Records, Leeds & Catlin Records, and Decca are based on authoritative published discographies, supplemented with new research, examination of recordings in the collections of the University of California Santa Barbara Library, and submissions from record collectors and archives.
DAHR currently includes information on 450,000 master recordings (matrixes) made by Victor, Columbia, OKeh, Berliner, Edison, Gennett, Plaza, ARC, Brunswick, Zonophone, and other record companies. Details on the editing progress on each company's masters is here.
The ADP is also a partner with the Library of Congress National Jukebox project and provides most of the cataloging data used in the Jukebox. As a result of this partnership, 11,000 recordings made by Victor and Columbia between 1900 and 1925 can be streamed online. An additional 85,000 masters from Victor, Columbia, Okeh, Edison, and other labels are also available via UCSB's streaming player or embedded YouTube links.
Explore the news sidebar to your right or follow our social media for updates on current editing and digitization projects.
Credits
The American Discography Project is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the UCSB Library, and the William R. Moran Fund for Recorded Sound.
Electronic online database editions of The Columbia Master Book Discography, Berliner Gramophone Records: American Issues, 1892-1900, Discography of OKeh Records, 1918-1934, and The Decca Labels: A Discography, by arrangement with ABC-CLIO, LLC, Santa Barbara, CA. The American Zonophone Discography, and Leeds & Catlin Records by arrangement with Mainspring Press, Denver CO. All rights reserved. Full credits can be found here.
If any of the material on this page, or any part of our website, is not accessible to you, please contact the web services librarian by phone at (805) 893-2074 or send us an email. We will either resolve the issue or provide alternatives.
News
Joe Bussard Collection Coming Online in a Collaboration between UCSB and the Dust-to-Digital Foundation
American Record Companies and Producers, 1888-1950 Now Available
The second edition of Allan Sutton's
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