Testing Hearing: The Making of Modern Aurality shows how new forms of testing contributed not only to new understandings of hearing but to completely new ways of hearing. From diagnostic surveys of school children, to training regimes for sonar operators, to a community’s use of noise complaints to test their state’s power, this volume showcases twelve historical case studies spanning 200 years. The history of testing hearing—and using hearing to test other objects and ideas—prompts us to think more broadly about the role of testing, with its evolving values and applications, in the very way we sense and perceive and move through the world.

On this page, the authors of the Testing Hearing volume have compiled primary sources (texts, images, audio and video material) that are central to their respective chapters. We hope that free access to these sources will be useful for research and teaching purposes!