This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

In 1939, an astonishing new machine debuted at the world's fair in New York City.

It was called the voter, short for voice operating demonstrator.

It looked sort of like a futuristic church organ.

That's our own Delaney Hall.

An operator, known as a voterette, would sit at a curved wooden console.

Behind her there was a huge wall with an art deco

image of a man's face with these spirals of curly hair.

His mouth was a giant speaker. The

Votorette would place her hands on two keyboards in front of her, each with five or

six white keys. She'd use her feet to work two petals down below, but instead of musical notes, the machine a high voice. And now in his best face.

This is from a demo recording of the voter produced in 1939 around the same time as the World's Fair.

Each of the keys on the keyboard controlled a particular frequency band.

One foot pedal controlled pitch, and the other foot pedal controlled whether the sound would be muffled or crisp. controlled Voderets would train for up to a year to make the voter actually talk like a person or sing like a person.

Suppose you sing a song for us, will you?

Yes, I'm glee.

Well, how about all Langsine?

Oh, Langsine.

Okay.

Shoot all that way turns be for a

and then. And remember, this is all happening totally live.

The voter ed is not triggering pre-recorded words.

...