*Post written by James Wethington, library assistant of the University Archives and Special Collections.

Close Up, n.d.

Vinyl Record, n.d.

As technology continued to improve, so did the music industry. As the wax cylinders were going out of style, vinyl records were becoming the next big thing! Also known as “gramophone records”, they remained popular from the 1950’s to the 1990’s (The Record Collectors Guild, n.d.).

The first company to promote the vinyl industry was RCA in the 1930’s; however, their vinyl were a “… commercial failure” because of “lack of affordable, reliable consumer playback equipment and consumer wariness during the Great Depression” (The Record Collectors Guild, n.d.). By the end of the 1930’s, Columbia Records improved the quality of the vinyl records and led to a creation of various sizes of vinyl records. The most commonly used vinyl records were the 12” and 7”; however, the compact discs, or the CD, took over as the new “ruler” in the 1990’s (The Record Collectors Guild, n.d.).

“We Are the United Nations” was wrote by Richard Rosencranz. Rosencranz, an Evansville native, wrote the song for the University of Evansville, dedicated to the United Nations (Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library, Newsbank Database, 1971). He was the secretary of the original Board of Trustees for the University of Evansville in 1919, when the school moved from Moores Hill, and was a member of numerous associations (EVPL Newsbank Database, 1971). Rosencranz passed away on January 25, 1971, at the age of ninety-one (Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library, Browning Genealogy Database, n.d.).

If you are curious to know what the song sounds like, click on  “We Are the United Nations” and listen to it. Enjoy!

References

Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library. (n.d.). Browning genealogy database. Retrieved January 27, 2017, from http://browning.evpl.org/

Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library (1971). Newsbank database. Retrieved January 27, 2017, from http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/?p=WORLDNEWS&t=product%3AEANX-NB

The Record Collectors Guild. (n.d.). About vinyl records. Retrieved January 27, 2017, from http://www.recordcollectorsguild.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=44&page=1