French by Sound: The Bucklands’ French Primary School x JPL’s Memory Lab

Written by Elaine Akins, RAP Archivist

The Bucklands’ French Primary School

While there are many unique qualities about the Buckland family, the original residents of RAP’s beautiful office space here on Herschel Street, a more well-known fact among the neighborhood is that Grace Buckland and her older daughter Mary operated the French Primary School out of the house. They taught not only French, but also reading, writing, and arithmetic, from 1918 into the 1940s, to neighborhood children, some of whom would become pillars of the Jacksonville community, such as Telfair “Stockton” Rogers, Sr. and Charles “Charlie” D. Towers Jr. One glimpse into Buckland family records, and teaching quickly emerges as a tradition of the Buckland women–younger daughter Charlotte later joining the profession at the Julia Landon College Preparatory School in the Duval County Public School System, as does the affinity for French language and culture.

We have found a multitude of French objects and records, including ceramics, books, catalogs for ordering French textbooks, sheet music with French lyrics, old-fashioned calling cards with days of the week printed in French, and references to Grace’s own lessons with a French tutor in one of Mary’s childhood journals.

Perhaps most unique is a leather-bound volume of 10 vinyl records titled French by Sound. Each record features a single French lesson on either side, for a total of 20 lessons. The course was designed by Raymond Weeks, Ph.D., a Professor of Romance Philology at Columbia University, and taught by Louis Allard, L.L.D., a Professor of French Literature at Harvard University.

Early 20th-Century Music Technology

French by Sound was recorded in 1908 in the state-of-the-art 78 RPM format by Victor Talking Machine Company, incorporated in Camden, New Jersey, in 1901 and later becoming RCA Victor. In fact, French by Sound‘s leather cover features the iconic “His Master’s Voice” trademark with Nipper the dog leaning his head into the cylinder of an old Edison-style phonograph. According to Yale University’s Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, a brittle material using a shellac resin was the most common ingredient of a 78 record, and when shellac was extremely rare during World War II, manufacturers turned to vinyl pressing in 33 and 45 RPMs. Fun fact: while 78s were gradually replaced by 33s and 45s by 1950, most modern turntables still have a 78 setting (such as my own personal 2024-manufactured Victrola, which likely played lessons from French by Sound for the first time since the 1940s). 

The National Jazz Archive also touts the invention of the 78 as a catalyst for spreading the popularity of jazz music. “When wax cylinders were replaced by shellac discs, they could be manufactured cheaply in great quantities… As record players became common, jazz travelled from its roots in the southern states of the US throughout America and overseas” en masse during the jazz age. The Buckland collection includes a few of these 78s, as well–another topic for another blog post!

A Day in JPL’s Memory Lab

Digitization is always at the top of every archivist’s mind, especially for objects or records whose conditions will only worsen, regardless of humanity’s best technological interventions. So when Special Collections librarian, Tammy Kiter, and her team at the Jacksonville Public Library extended an invitation to visit their Memory Lab and the promise of technology that converts vinyl records (yes, even 78s!) into .mp3 files, we jumped at the opportunity to take French by Sound on a digital test drive.

This past November, I toted the entire French by Sound volume in its archival plastic bag to the fourth floor of the main JPL branch downtown. Over the course of about three hours, the Special Collections team walked me through every step of the digitization process–spinning the record on their turntable, which is connected to the Audacity conversion software on their computers, whose final product can be downloaded on a flash drive or personal storage device. With multiple stations available, headphones are provided so that your recording doesn’t interrupt others, and once you’ve got the hang of it, the staff sets you free to digitize to your heart’s contentment.

JPL’s Memory Lab resources are FREE (!) and available to library card holders for self-directed use during regular library hours. Not only can you digitize vinyl records, but also old VHS and audio cassette tapes, and you can scan, edit, and restore photos, slides, film, documents, and more. The Special Collections department recommends reserving a station before your visiting or asking questions ahead of time by calling (904) 255-BOOK.

RAP strives to preserve the objects and records we hold in the public trust in our own collections and archives, but we are also thrilled to encourage you to do the same for the items that help to preserve your personal history. JPL’s Memory Lab is an invaluable, free resource for professional and amateur archivists, students, artists, historians, and genealogists – for anyone out there who thinks about the past and how to hold space for it today.