National Recording Registry
Updated February 11, 2017 | Infoplease Staff

In 2002, the Library of Congress took its first step to preserve American sound recordings and selected the first 50 recordings to start a national registry.
(Listed in chronological order.)
- Edison Exhibition Recordings (Group of three cylinders): ?Around the World on the Phonograph;? ?The Pattison Waltz;? ?Fifth Regiment March.? (1888?1889).
- The Jesse Walter Fewkes field recordings of the Passamaquoddy Indians. (1890)
- ?Stars and Stripes Forever? Military Band. Berliner Gramophone disc recording. (1897)
- Lionel Mapleson cylinder recordings of the Metropolitan Opera. (1900?1903)
- Scott Joplin ragtime compositions on piano rolls. Scott Joplin, piano. (1900s)
- Booker T. Washington's 1895 Atlanta Exposition Speech. (1906 recreation)
- ?Vesti la giubba? from Pagliacci. Enrico Caruso. (1907)
- ?Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.? Fisk Jubilee Singers. (1909)
- Lovey's Trinidad String Band recordings for Columbia Records. (1912)
- ?Casey at the Bat.? DeWolf Hopper, reciting. (1915)
- ?Tiger Rag.? Original Dixieland Jazz Band. (1918)
- ?Arkansas Traveler? and ?Sallie Gooden.? Eck Robertson, fiddle. (1922)
- ?Down-Hearted Blues.? Bessie Smith. (1923)
- ?Rhapsody in Blue.? George Gershwin, piano; Paul Whiteman Orchestra. (1924)
- Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings. (1925?1928)
- Victor Talking Machine Company sessions in Bristol, Tennessee. Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Ernest Stoneman, and others. (1927)
- Harvard Vocarium record series. T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, others, reciting. (1930?1940s)
- Highlander Center Field Recording Collection. Rosa Parks, Esau Jenkins, others. (1930s?1980s)
- Bell Laboratories experimental stereo recordings. Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, conductor. (1931-1932)
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt's radio ?Fireside Chats.? (1933?1944)
- New Music Recordings series. Henry Cowell, producer. (1934?1949)
- Description of the crash of the Hindenburg. Herbert Morrison, reporting. (1937)
- ?Who's on First.? Abbott and Costello's first radio broadcast version. (1938)
- ?War of the Worlds.? Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater. (1938)
- ?God Bless America.? Kate Smith. Radio broadcast premiere. (1938)
- The Cradle Will Rock. Marc Blitzstein and the original Broadway cast. (1938)
- The John and Ruby Lomax Southern States Recording Trip. (1939)
- Grand Ole Opry. First network radio broadcast. Uncle Dave Macon, Roy Acuff, and others. (1939)
- ?Strange Fruit.? Billie Holiday. (1939)
- Duke Ellington Orchestra ?Blanton-Webster Era? recordings. (1940?1942)
- Bela Bartok, piano, and Joseph Szigeti, violin, in concert at the Library of Congress. (1940)
- ?Rite of Spring.? Igor Stravinsky conducting the New York Philharmonic. (1940)
- ?White Christmas.? Bing Crosby. (1942)
- ?This Land is Your Land.? Woody Guthrie. (1944)
- General Dwight D. Eisenhower's D-Day radio address to the Allied Nations. (1944)
- ?Koko.? Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and others. (1945)
- ?Blue Moon of Kentucky.? Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. (1947)
- ?How High the Moon.? Les Paul and Mary Ford. (1951)
- Elvis Presley's Sun Records sessions. (1954?1955)
- Songs for Young Lovers. Frank Sinatra. (1955)
- Dance Mania. Tito Puente. (1958)
- Kind of Blue. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, and others. (1959)
- ?What'd I Say,? parts 1 and 2. Ray Charles. (1959)
- ?I Have a Dream.? Speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963)
- Freewheelin'. Bob Dylan. (1963)
- ?Respect!? Aretha Franklin. (1967)
- Philomel: for soprano, recorded soprano, and synthesized sound. Bethany Beardslee, soprano. (1971)
- Precious Lord: New Recordings of the Great Gospel Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey. Thomas Dorsey, Marion Williams, and others. (1973)
- Crescent City Living Legends Collection (New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation Archive/WWOZ New Orleans). (1973?1990)
- ?The Message.? Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. (1982)
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