Speaking, Stammering, Singing, Shouting: A Social History of the Modern Voice

What was considered a good, normal, or healthy voice in the nineteenth century?

In 1854, singing master Manuel Garcia became the first person to see the vocal cords at work in a human throat. Less than a decade later, surgeon Paul Broca identified what he called a speech center in the brain. The almost simultaneous invention of the laryngoscope and the discovery of Broca’s area present important turning points for how medical, musical, and other experts understood how the human voice works.

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