Thomas Alva Edison patents the phonograph - Feb 19, 1878 - HISTORY.com Thomas Alva Edison patents the phonograph Share this: Thomas Alva Edison patents the phonograph Author Thomas Alva Edison patents the phonograph URL Publisher A+E Networks The technology that made the modern music business possible came into existence in the New Jersey laboratory where Thomas Alva Edison created the first device to both record sound and play it back. He was awarded U.S. Patent No. 200,521 for his invention–the phonograph–on this day in 1878. Edison’s invention came about as spin-off from his ongoing work in telephony and telegraphy. In an effort to facilitate the repeated transmission of a single telegraph message, Edison devised a method for capturing a passage of Morse code as a sequence of indentations on a spool of paper. Reasoning that a similar feat could be accomplished for the telephone, Edison devised a system that transferred the vibrations of a diaphragm—i.e., sound—to an embossing point and then mechanically onto an impressionable medium—paraffin paper at first, and then a spinning, tin-foil wrapped cylinder as he refined his concept.

Edison and his mechanic, John Kreusi, worked on the invention through the autumn of 1877 and quickly had a working model ready for demonstration. The December 22, 1877, issue of Scientific American reported that “Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came into this office, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was very well, and bid us a cordial good night.” The patent awarded to Edison on February 19, 1878, specified a particular method—embossing—for capturing sound on tin-foil-covered cylinders. The next critical improvement in recording technology came courtesy of Edison’s competitor in the race to develop the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell. His newly established Bell Labs developed a phonograph based on the engraving of a wax cylinder, a significant improvement that led directly to the successful commercialization of recorded music in the 1890s and lent a vocabulary to the recording business—e.g., “cutting” records and “spinning wax”—that has long outlived the technology on which it was based.

Related Videos The Edison Cylinder Phonograph Over the Years By Mary Bellis Updated August 16, 2016. The phonograph was developed as a result of Thomas Edison's work on two other inventions, the telegraph and the telephone. In 1877, Edison was working on a machine that would transcribe telegraphic messages through indentations on paper tape, which could later be sent over the telegraph repeatedly. This development led Edison to speculate that a telephone message could also be recorded in a similar fashion. He experimented with a diaphragm which had an embossing point and was held against rapidly-moving paraffin paper. The speaking vibrations made indentations in the paper. Edison later changed the paper to a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it. The machine had two diaphragm-and-needle units, one for recording, and one for playback. When one would speak into a mouthpiece, the sound vibrations would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle in a vertical (or hill and dale) groove pattern. Edison gave a sketch of the machine to his mechanic, John Kreusi, to build, which Kreusi supposedly did within 30 hours.

Edison immediately tested the machine by speaking the nursery rhyme into the mouthpiece, "Mary had a little lamb." To his amazement, the machine played his words back to him. 1. Disputes Over Dates Although it was later stated that the date for this event was on August 12, 1877, some historians believe that it probably happened several months later, since Edison did not file for a patent until December 24, 1877. Also, the diary of one of Edison's aides, Charles Batchelor, seems to confirm that the phonograph was not constructed until December 4, and finished two days later. The patent (#200,521) on the phonograph was issued on February 19, 1878. The invention was highly original. The only other recorded evidence of such an invention was in a paper by French scientist Charles Cros, written on April 18, 1877. There were some differences, however, between the two men's ideas, and Cros's work remained only a theory, since he did not produce a working model of it. 2.

Scientific American Edison took his new invention to the offices of Scientific American in New York City and showed it to staff there. As the December 22, 1877, issue reported, "Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came into this office, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was very well, and bid us a cordial good night." Interest was great, and the invention was reported in several New York newspapers, and later in other American newspapers and magazines. The Edison Speaking Phonograph Company was established on January 24, 1878, to exploit the new machine by exhibiting it. Edison received $10,000 for the manufacturing and sales rights and 20 percent of the profits. As a novelty, the machine was an instant success, but was difficult to operate except by experts, and the tin foil would last for only a few playings. 3.

Future Uses Ever practical and visionary, Edison offered the following possible future uses for the phonograph in North American Review in June 1878: Letter writing and all kinds of dictation without the aid of a stenographer. Phonographic books, which will speak to blind people without effort on their part. The teaching of elocution. Reproduction of music. The "Family Record"--a registry of sayings, reminiscences, etc., by members of a family in their own voices, and of the last words of dying persons. Music boxes and toys. Clocks that should announce in articulate speech the time for going home, going to meals, etc. The preservation of languages by exact reproduction of the manner of pronouncing. Educational purposes; such as preserving the explanantions made by a teacher, so that the pupil can refer to them at any moment, and spelling or other lessons placed upon the phonograph for convenience in committing to memory. Connection with the telephone, so as to make that instrument an auxiliary in the transmission of permanent and invaluable records, instead of being the recipient of momentary and fleeting communication.

Eventually, the novelty of the invention wore off for the public, and Edison did no further work on the phonograph for a while, concentrating instead on inventing the incadescent light bulb. 4. Other Inventors In the void left by Edison, others moved forward to improve the phonograph. In 1880, Alexander Graham Bell won the Volta Prize of $10,000 from the French government for his invention of the telephone. Bell used his winnings to set up a laboratory to further electrical and acoustical research, working with his cousin Chichester A. Bell, a chemical engineer, and Charles Sumner Tainter, a scientist and instrument maker. They made some improvements on Edison's invention, chiefly by using wax in the place of tin foil and a floating stylus instead of a rigid needle which would incise, rather than indent, the cylinder. A patent was awarded to C. Bell and Tainter on May 4, 1886. The machine was exhibited to the public as the graphophone. Bell and Tainter had representatives approach Edison to discuss a possible collaboration on the machine, but Edison refused and determined to improve the phonograph himself.

At this point, he had succeeded in making the incandescent lamp and could now resume his work on the phonograph. His initial work, though, closely followed the improvements made by Bell and Tainter, especially in its use of wax cylinders, and was called the New Phonograph. 5. Edison Phonograph Company The Edison Phonograph Company was formed on October 8, 1887, to market Edison's machine. He introduced the Improved Phonograph by May of 1888, shortly followed by the Perfected Phonograph. The first wax cylinders Edison used were white and made of ceresin, beeswax, and stearic wax. Businessman Jesse H. Lippincott assumed control of the phonograph companies by becoming sole licensee of the American Graphophone Company and by purchasing the Edison Phonograph Company from Edison. In an arrangement which eventually included most other phonograph makers as well, he formed the North American Phonograph Company on July 14, 1888. Lippincott saw the potential use of the phonograph only in the business field and leased the phonographs as office dictating machines to various member companies which each had its own sales territory.

Unfortunately, this business did not prove to be very profitable, receiving significant opposition from stenographers. Meanwhile, the Edison Factory produced talking dolls in 1890 for the Edison Phonograph Toy Manufacturing Co. The dolls contained tiny wax cylinders. Edison's relationship with the company ended in March of 1891, and the dolls are very rare today. The Edison Phonograph Works also produced musical cylinders for coin-slot phonographs which some of the subsidiary companies had started to use. These proto-"jukeboxes" were a development which pointed to the future of phonographs as entertainment machines. In the fall of 1890, Lippincott fell ill and lost control of the North American Phonograph Co. to Edison, who was its principal creditor. Edison changed the policy of rentals to outright sales of the machines, but changed little else. Edison increased the entertainment offerings on his cylinders, which by 1892 were made of a wax known among collectors today as "brown wax." Although called by this name, the cylinders could range in color from off-white to light tan to dark brown. An announcement at the beginning of the cylinder would typically indicate the title, artist, and company.

In 1894, Edison declared bankruptcy for the North American Phonograph Company, a move that enabled him to buy back the rights to his invention. It took two years for the bankruptcy affairs to be settled before Edison could move ahead with marketing his invention. The Edison Spring Motor Phonograph appeared in 1895, even though technically Edison was not allowed to sell phonographs at this time because of the bankruptcy agreement. In January 1896, he started the National Phonograph Company which would manufacture phonographs for home entertainment use. Within three years, branches of the company were located in Europe. Under the aegis of the company, he announced the Spring Motor Phonograph in 1896, followed by the Edison Home Phonograph, and he began the commercial issue of cylinders under the new company's label. A year later, the Edison Standard Phonograph was manufactured, and then exhibited in the press in 1898. This was the first phonograph to carry the Edison trademark design.

Prices for the phonographs had significantly diminished from its early days of $150 (in 1891) down to $20 for the Standard model and $7.50 for a model known as the Gem, introduced in 1899. 6. Early Cylinders Standard-sized cylinders, which tended to be 4.25" long and 2.1875" in diameter, were 50 cents each and typically played at 120 r.p.m. A variety of selections were featured on the cylinders, including marches, sentimental ballads, coon songs, hymns, comic monologues and descriptive specialities, which offered sound reenactments of events. The early cylinders had two significant problems. The first was the short length of the cylinders, only 2 minutes. This necessarily narrowed the field of what could be recorded. The second problem was that no mass method of duplicating cylinders existed. Most often, performers had to repeat their performances when recording in order to amass a quantity of cylinders. This was not only time-consuming but costly.

The Edison Concert Phonograph, which had a louder sound and a larger cylinder measuring 4.25" long and 5" in diameter, was introduced in 1899, retailing for $125 and the large cylinders for $4. The Concert Phonograph did not sell well, and prices for it and its cylinders were dramatically reduced. Their production ceased in 1912. A process for mass-producing duplicate wax cylinders was put into effect in 1901. The cylinders were molded, rather than engraved by a stylus, and a harder wax was used. The process was referred to as Gold Moulded, because of a gold vapor given off by gold electrodes used in the process. Sub-masters were created from the gold master, and the cylinders were made from these molds. From a single mold, 120 to 150 cylinders could be produced every day. The new wax used was black in color, and the cylinders were initially called New High Speed Hard Wax Moulded Records until the name was changed to Gold Moulded. By mid-1904, the savings in mass duplication was reflected in the price for cylinders which had been lowered to 35 cents each.

Beveled ends were made on the cylinders to accommodate titles. A new business phonograph was introduced in 1905. Similar to a standard phonograph, it had alterations to the reproducer and mandrel. The early machines were difficult to use, and their fragility made them prone to failure. Even though improvements were made to the machine over the years, they still cost more than the popular, inexpensive Dictaphones put out by Columbia. Electrical motors and controls were later added to the Edison business machine, which improved their performance. (Some Edison phonographs made before 1895 also had electric motors, until they were replaced by spring motors.) Dictating Systems At this point, the Edison business phonograph became a dictating system. Three machines were used: the executive dictating machine, the secretarial machine for transcribing, and a shaving machine used to recycle used cylinders. This system can be seen in the Edison advertising film, The Stenographer's Friend, filmed in 1910. An improved machine, the Ediphone, was introduced in 1916 and steadily grew in sales after World War I and into the 1920's.

In terms of playing time, the 2-minute wax cylinder could not compete well against competitors' discs, which could offer up to four minutes. In response, the Amberol Record was presented in November 1908, which had finer grooves than the two-minute cylinders, and thus, could last as long as 4 minutes. The two-minute cylinders were then referred to in the future as Edison Two-Minute Records, and then later as Edison Standard Records. In 1909, a series of Grand Opera Amberols (a continuation of the two-minute Grand Opera Cylinders introduced in 1906) was put on the market to attract the higher-class clientele, but these did not prove successful. The Amberola I phonograph was introduced in 1909, a floor-model luxury machine with high-quality performance, and was supposed to compete with the Victrola and Grafonola. In 1910, the company was reorganized into Thomas A. Edison, Inc. Frank L. Dyer was initially president, then Edison served as president from December 1912 until August 1926, when his son, Charles, became president, and Edison became chairman of the board.

Columbia, one of Edison's chief competitors, abandoned the cylinder market in 1912. (Columbia had given up making its own cylinders in 1909, and until 1912 was only releasing cylinders which it had acquired from the Indestructible Phonographic Record Co.) The United States Phonograph Co. ceased production of its U.S. Everlasting cylinders in 1913, leaving the cylinder market to Edison. The disc had steadily grown in popularity with the consumer, thanks especially to the popular roster of Victor artists on disc. Edison refused to give up the cylinder, introducing instead the Blue Amberol Record, an unbreakable cylinder with what was arguably the best available sound on a recording at the time. The finer sound of the cylinder was partly due to the fact that a cylinder had constant surface speed from beginning to end in contrast to the inner groove distortion that occurred on discs when the surface speed slowed down. Partisans of Edison also argued that the vertical cut in the groove produced a superior sound to the lateral cut of Victor and other disc competitors. Cylinders, though, had truly peaked by this time, and even the superior sound of the Blue Amberols could not persuade the larger public to buy cylinders.

Edison conceded to this reality in 1913 when he announced the manufacture of the Edison Disc Phonograph. The Edison Company did not desert its faithful cylinder customers, however, and continued to make Blue Amberol cylinders until the demise of the company in 1929, although most from 1915 on were dubbed from the Diamond Discs. American inventor, Thomas Edison patented the phonograph this day in history, 1878 – World Book INK worldbookblog Leave a comment On Feb. 19, 1878, the American inventor Thomas A. Edison was awarded a patent for the phonograph. The phonograph was the first machine that was able to mechanically reproduce sound. Edison’s invention made him one of the most famous Americans alive. It also helped launch the multibillion-dollar music industry. The word phonography stems from the Greek words phone (sound) and graphein (to write). It refers to the practice of transcribing speech by symbols that represent elements of sound. In 1857, the French typographer Léon Scott de Martinville invented the phonautograph, a machine that drew sound wave forms on a spinning cylinder covered with smoked paper.

While the phonautograph could represent sound visually, it could not reproduce sound audibly. In 1876 and 1877, Edison experimented with ways to record and replay messages. These experiments led to the invention of his phonograph. To record messages, Edison attached a needle to a diaphragm, a metal disk that vibrated in response to sound waves. The needle rested against a rotating cylinder wrapped with tinfoil. When the disk vibrated, the needle made varying impressions in the foil. To reproduce the sound, another needle was attached to a diaphragm and funnellike horn. This needle retraced the impressions or grooves in the foil. It vibrated the diaphragm and thus the air in the horn, re-creating the original sound waves. Edison had a machinist build first phonograph in December 1877. When it was completed, Edison recorded the famous nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” The quality of this recording, and other early recordings, was poor. The tinfoil used in Edison’s phonograph was not capable of producing high-quality recordings. It also was not durable enough to be used more than a few times.

In 1887, Emile Berliner , a German immigrant to the United States, invented the Gramophone–a phonograph that used shellac discs. These discs provided better sound and could be mass-produced more easily than could cylinders. Share this: 1877 - Edison's Phonograph 1877 - Edison's Phonograph In August, 1877, Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) invented the Tinfoil Phonograph in his Menlo Park, NJ laboratory. He filed for the patent on December 24, 1877, and on February 19, 1878 was awarded patent # 200,521 for "Phonograph or Speaking Machine". It was the first machine that could reproduce recorded sound. It had a small mouthpiece equipped at one end with a steel pin, much like Scott's design. The rotating cylinder was wrapped in tinfoil, however, and it recorded the sound vibrations in a series of vertical indentations, instead of merely tracing the sound waves on paper. When the pin, or stylus, was run back over the pattern, the sounds were reproduced.

It was in this manner that the young inventor first heard his own recitation of the nursery rhyme, "Mary Had a Little Lamb", repeated by the "speaking machine." He was never so taken aback, Edison later said, because the invention worked the first time! Thomas Edison Patents the First Phonograph | World History Project Feb 19 1878 Thomas Edison Patents the First Phonograph The phonograph was developed as a result of Thomas Edison's work on two other inventions, the telegraph and the telephone. In 1877, Edison was working on a machine that would transcribe telegraphic messages through indentations on paper tape, which could later be sent over the telegraph repeatedly. This development led Edison to speculate that a telephone message could also be recorded in a similar fashion. He experimented with a diaphragm which had an embossing point and was held against rapidly-moving paraffin paper. The speaking vibrations made indentations in the paper. Edison later changed the paper to a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it. The machine had two diaphragm-and-needle units, one for recording, and one for playback.

When one would speak into a mouthpiece, the sound vibrations would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle in a vertical (or hill and dale) groove pattern. Edison gave a sketch of the machine to his mechanic, John Kruesi, to build, which Kruesi supposedly did within 30 hours. Edison immediately tested the machine by speaking the nursery rhyme into the mouthpiece, "Mary had a little lamb." To his amazement, the machine played his words back to him. Although it was later stated that the date for this event was on August 12, 1877, some historians believe that it probably happened several months later, since Edison did not file for a patent until December 24, 1877. Also, the diary of one of Edison's aides, Charles Batchelor, seems to confirm that the phonograph was not constructed until December 4, and finished two days later. The patent on the phonograph was issued on February 19, 1878. The invention was highly original. The only other recorded evidence of such an invention was in a paper by French scientist Charles Cros, written on April 18, 1877.

There were some differences, however, between the two men's ideas, and Cros's work remained only a theory, since he did not produce a working model of it. Edison took his new invention to the offices of Scientific American in New York City and showed it to staff there. As the December 22, 1877, issue reported, "Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came into this office, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was very well, and bid us a cordial good night." Interest was great, and the invention was reported in several New York newspapers, and later in other American newspapers and magazines. The Edison Speaking Phonograph Company was established on January 24, 1878, to exploit the new machine by exhibiting it. Edison received $10,000 for the manufacturing and sales rights and 20% of the profits. As a novelty, the machine was an instant success, but was difficult to operate except by experts, and the tin foil would last for only a few playings.

Ever practical and visionary, Edison offered the following possible future uses for the phonograph in North American Review in June 1878: 1. Letter writing and all kinds of dictation without the aid of a stenographer. 2. Phonographic books, which will speak to blind people without effort on their part. 3. The teaching of elocution. 4. Reproduction of music. 5. The "Family Record"--a registry of sayings, reminiscences, etc., by members of a family in their own voices, and of the last words of dying persons. 6. Music-boxes and toys. 7. Clocks that should announce in articulate speech the time for going home, going to meals, etc. 8. The preservation of languages by exact reproduction of the manner of pronouncing. 9. Educational purposes; such as preserving the explanantions made by a teacher, so that the pupil can refer to them at any moment, and spelling or other lessons placed upon the phonograph for convenience in committing to memory. 10. Connection with the telephone, so as to make that instrument an auxiliary in the transmission of permanent and invaluable records, instead of being the recipient of momentary and fleeting communication.

Eventually, the novelty of the invention wore off for the public, and Edison did no further work on the phonograph for a while, concentrating instead on inventing the incadescent light bulb. In the void left by Edison, others moved forward to improve the phonograph. In 1880, Alexander Graham Bell won the Volta Prize of $10,000 from the French government for his invention of the telephone. Bell used his winnings to set up a laboratory to further electrical and acoustical research, working with his cousin Chichester A. Bell, a chemical engineer, and Charles Sumner Tainter, a scientist and instrument maker. They made some improvements on Edison's invention, chiefly by using wax in the place of tin foil and a floating stylus instead of a rigid needle which would incise, rather than indent, the cylinder. A patent was awarded to C. Bell and Tainter on May 4, 1886. The machine was exhibited to the public as the graphophone. Bell and Tainter had representatives approach Edison to discuss a possible collaboration on the machine, but Edison refused and determined to improve the phonograph himself.

At this point, he had succeeded in making the incandescent lamp and could now resume his work on the phonograph. His initial work, though, closely followed the improvements made by Bell and Tainter, especially in its use of wax cylinders, and was called the New Phonograph. The Edison Phonograph Company was formed on October 8, 1887, to market Edison's machine. He introduced the Improved Phonograph by May of 1888, shortly followed by the Perfected Phonograph. The first wax cylinders Edison used were white and made of ceresin, beeswax, and stearic wax. Businessman Jesse H. Lippincott assumed control of the phonograph companies by becoming sole licensee of the American Graphophone Company and by purchasing the Edison Phonograph Company from Edison. In an arrangement which eventually included most other phonograph makers as well, he formed the North American Phonograph Company on July 14, 1888. Lippincott saw the potential use of the phonograph only in the business field and leased the phonographs as office dictating machines to various member companies which each had its own sales territory.

Unfortunately, this business did not prove to be very profitable, receiving significant opposition from stenographers. Meanwhile, the Edison Factory produced talking dolls in 1890 for the Edison Phonograph Toy Manufacturing Co. The dolls contained tiny wax cylinders. Edison's relationship with the company ended in March of 1891, and the dolls are very rare today. The Edison Phonograph Works also produced musical cylinders for coin-slot phonographs which some of the subsidiary companies had started to use. These proto-"jukeboxes" were a development which pointed to the future of phonographs as entertainment machines. In the fall of 1890, Lippincott fell ill and lost control of the North American Phonograph Co. to Edison, who was its principal creditor. Edison changed the policy of rentals to outright sales of the machines, but changed little else. Edison increased the entertainment offerings on his cylinders, which by 1892 were made of a wax known among collectors today as "brown wax." Although called by this name, the cylinders could range in color from off-white to light tan to dark brown. An announcement at the beginning of the cylinder would typically indicate the title, artist, and company.

In 1894, Edison declared bankruptcy for the North American Phonograph Company, a move that enabled him to buy back the rights to his invention. It took two years for the bankruptcy affairs to be settled before Edison could move ahead with marketing his invention. The Edison Spring Motor Phonograph appeared in 1895, even though technically Edison was not allowed to sell phonographs at this time because of the bankruptcy agreement. In January 1896, he started the National Phonograph Company which would manufacture phonographs for home entertainment use. Within three years, branches of the company were located in Europe. Under the aegis of the company, he announced the Spring Motor Phonograph in 1896, followed by the Edison Home Phonograph, and he began the commercial issue of cylinders under the new company's label. A year later, the Edison Standard Phonograph was manufactured, and then exhibited in the press in 1898. This was the first phonograph to carry the Edison trademark design.

Prices for the phonographs had significantly diminished from its early days of $150 (in 1891) down to $20 for the Standard model and $7.50 for a model known as the Gem, introduced in 1899. Standard-sized cylinders, which tended to be 4.25" long and 2.1875" in diameter, were 50 cents each and typically played at 120 r.p.m. A variety of selections were featured on the cylinders, including marches, sentimental ballads, coon songs, hymns, comic monologues and descriptive specialities, which offered sound reenactments of events. The early cylinders had two significant problems. The first was the short length of the cylinders, only 2 minutes. This necessarily narrowed the field of what could be recorded. The second problem was that no mass method of duplicating cylinders existed. Most often, performers had to repeat their performances when recording in order to amass a quantity of cylinders. This was not only time-consuming, but costly.

The Edison Concert Phonograph, which had a louder sound and a larger cylinder measuring 4.25" long and 5" in diameter, was introduced in 1899, retailing for $125 and the large cylinders for $4. The Concert Phonograph did not sell well, and prices for it and its cylinders were dramatically reduced. Their production ceased in 1912. A process for mass-producing duplicate wax cylinders was put into effect in 1901. The cylinders were molded, rather than engraved by a stylus, and a harder wax was used. The process was referred to as Gold Moulded, because of a gold vapor given off by gold electrodes used in the process. Sub-masters were created from the gold master, and the cylinders were made from these molds. From a single mold, 120 to 150 cylinders could be produced every day. The new wax used was black in color, and the cylinders were initially called New High Speed Hard Wax Moulded Records until the name was changed to Gold Moulded. By mid-1904, the savings in mass duplication was reflected in the price for cylinders which had been lowered to 35 cents each.

Beveled ends were made on the cylinders to accommodate titles. A new business phonograph was introduced in 1905. Similar to a standard phonograph, it had alterations to the reproducer and mandrel. The early machines were difficult to use, and their fragility made them prone to failure. Even though improvements were made to the machine over the years, they still cost more than the popular, inexpensive Dictaphones put out by Columbia. Electrical motors and controls were later added to the Edison business machine, which improved their performance. (Some Edison phonographs made before 1895 also had electric motors, until they were replaced by spring motors.) At this point, the Edison business phonograph became a dictating system. Three machines were used: the executive dictating machine, the secretarial machine for transcribing, and a shaving machine used to recycle used cylinders. This system can be seen in the Edison advertising film, The Stenographer's Friend, filmed in 1910. An improved machine, the Ediphone, was introduced in 1916 and steadily grew in sales after World War I and into the 1920's.

In terms of playing time, the 2-minute wax cylinder could not compete well against competitors' discs, which could offer up to four minutes. In response, the Amberol Record was presented in November 1908, which had finer grooves than the two-minute cylinders, and thus, could last as long as 4 minutes. The two-minute cylinders were then referred to in the future as Edison Two-Minute Records, and then later as Edison Standard Records. In 1909, a series of Grand Opera Amberols (a continuation of the two-minute Grand Opera Cylinders introduced in 1906) was put on the market to attract the higher-class clientele, but these did not prove successful. The Amberola I phonograph was introduced in 1909, a floor-model luxury machine with high-quality performance, and was supposed to compete with the Victrola and Grafonola. In 1910, the company was reorganized into Thomas A. Edison, Inc. Frank L. Dyer was initially president, then Edison served as president from December 1912 until August 1926, when his son, Charles, became president, and Edison became chairman of the board.

Columbia, one of Edison's chief competitors, abandoned the cylinder market in 1912. (Columbia had given up making its own cylinders in 1909, and until 1912 was only releasing cylinders which it had acquired from the Indestructible Phonographic Record Co.) The United States Phonograph Co. ceased production of its U.S. Everlasting cylinders in 1913, leaving the cylinder market to Edison. The disc had steadily grown in popularity with the consumer, thanks especially to the popular roster of Victor artists on disc. Edison refused to give up the cylinder, introducing instead the Blue Amberol Record, an unbreakable cylinder with what was arguably the best available sound on a recording at the time. The finer sound of the cylinder was partly due to the fact that a cylinder had constant surface speed from beginning to end in contrast to the inner groove distortion that occurred on discs when the surface speed slowed down. Partisans of Edison also argued that the vertical cut in the groove produced a superior sound to the lateral cut of Victor and other disc competitors. Cylinders, though, had truly peaked by this time, and even the superior sound of the Blue Amberols could not persuade the larger public to buy cylinders.

Edison conceded to this reality in 1913 when he announced the manufacture of the Edison Disc Phonograph. The Edison Company did not desert its faithful cylinder customers, however, and continued to make Blue Amberol cylinders until the demise of the company in 1929, although most from 1915 on were dubbed from the Diamond Discs. Thomas Edison's Greatest Inventions Thomas Edison's Greatest Inventions How the iconic inventor's ideas shaped America Getty Images Updated October 13, 2016. The Phonograph Thomas Edison’s first great invention was the tin foil phonograph. While working to improve the efficiency of a telegraph transmitter , he noticed that the tape of the machine gave off a noise that resembled spoken words when played at a high speed. This led him to wonder if he could record a telephone message. So he began experimenting with the diaphragm of a telephone receiver by attaching a needle to it based on the reasoning that the needle could prick paper tape to record a message.

His experiments led him to try a stylus on a tinfoil cylinder, which, to his great surprise, played back the short message he recorded, "Mary had a little lamb." The word phonograph was the trade name for Edison's device, which played cylinders rather than discs. The machine had two needles: one for recording and one for playback. When you spoke into the mouthpiece, the sound vibrations of your voice would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle. continue reading below our video Profile of Thomas Edison The cylinder phonograph, the first machine that could record and reproduce sound, created a sensation and brought Edison international fame. The date given for Edison's completion of the model for the first phonograph was August 12, 1877. It is more likely, however, that work on the model was not finished until November or December of that year since he did not file for the patent until December 24, 1877. He toured the country with the tin foil phonograph and was invited to the White House to demonstrate the device to President Rutherford B. Hayes in April 1878.

In 1878, Thomas Edison established the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company to sell the new machine. He suggested other uses for the phonograph, such as letter writing and dictation, phonographic books for blind people, a family record (recording family members in their own voices), music boxes and toys, clocks that announce the time and a connection with the telephone so communications could be recorded. The phonograph also led to other spin-off inventions. For example, while the Edison Company had been fully devoted to the cylinder phonograph , Edison associates began developing their own disc player and discs in secret due to concern over the rising popularity of discs. And in 1913, the Kinetophone was introduced, which attempted to synchronize motion pictures with the sound of a phonograph cylinder record. A Practical Light Bulb Thomas Edison's greatest challenge was the development of a practical incandescent, electric light. Contrary to popular belief, he didn't "invent" the lightbulb, but rather he improved upon a 50-year-old idea. In 1879, using lower current electricity, a small carbonized filament and an improved vacuum inside the globe, he was able to produce a reliable, long-lasting source of light.

The idea of electric lighting was not new. A number of people had worked on and even developed forms of electric lighting. But up to that time, nothing had been developed that was remotely practical for home use. Edison's achievement was inventing not just an incandescent electric light, but also an electric lighting system that contained all the elements necessary to make the incandescent light practical, safe, and economical. He accomplished this when he was able to come up with an incandescent lamp with a filament of carbonized sewing thread that burned for thirteen and a half hours. There are a couple of other interesting things about the invention of the light bulb. While most of the attention has been given to the discovery of the ideal filament that made it work, the invention of seven other system elements were just as critical to the practical application of electric lights as an alternative to the gas lights that were prevalent in that day. These elements included: The devices for maintaining constant voltage Safety fuses and insulating materials Light sockets with on-off switches And before Edison could make his millions, every one of these elements had to be tested through careful trial and error, and developed further into practical, reproducible components.

The first public demonstration of the Thomas Edison's incandescent lighting system was at the Menlo Park laboratory complex in December of 1879. Industrialized Electrical Systems On September 4, 1882, the first commercial power station, located on Pearl Street in lower Manhattan, went into operation, providing light and electricity power to customers in a one square mile area. This marked the beginning of the electric age as the modern electric utility industry has since evolved from the early gas and electric carbon-arc commercial and street lighting systems. Thomas Edison's Pearl Street electricity generating station introduced four key elements of a modern electric utility system. It featured reliable central generation, efficient distribution, a successful end use (in 1882, the light bulb) and a competitive price. A model of efficiency for its time, Pearl Street used one-third the fuel of its predecessors, burning about 10 pounds of coal per kilowatt hour, a "heat rate" equivalent of about 138,000 Btu per kilowatt hour. Initially, the Pearl Street utility served 59 customers for about 24 cents per kilowatt hour.

In the late 1880s, power demand for electric motors dramatically altered the industry. It went from mainly providing nighttime lighting to becoming a 24-hour service due to high electricity demand for transportation and industry needs. By the end of the 1880s, small central stations dotted many U.S. cities, though each was limited in size to a few blocks because of direct current’s transmission inefficiencies. Eventually the success of his electric light brought Thomas Edison to new heights of fame and wealth as electricity spread around the world. His various electric companies continued to grow until they were brought together to form Edison General Electric in 1889. Yet despite the use of his name in the company title, the inventor never controlled this company. The tremendous amount of capital needed to develop the incandescent lighting industry would necessitate the involvement of investment bankers such as J.P. Morgan. And when Edison General Electric merged with leading competitor Thompson-Houston in 1892, Edison was dropped from the name and the company became simply General Electric.

Motion Pictures Thomas Edison's interest in motion pictures began before 1888, but it was English photographer Eadweard Muybridge ’s visit to his laboratory in West Orange in February of that year that inspired him to invent a camera for motion pictures. Muybridge had proposed that they collaborate and combine the Zoopraxiscope with the Edison phonograph. Edison was intrigued but decided not to participate in such a partnership because he felt that the Zoopraxiscope was not a very practical or efficient way of recording motion. However, he liked the concept and filed a caveat with the Patents Office on October 17, 1888 that described his ideas for a device that would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear" -- record and reproduce objects in motion. The device, called a " Kinetoscope ," was combination of the Greek words "kineto" meaning "movement" and "scopos" meaning "to watch.” Edison’s team finished development on the Kinetoscope in 1891. One of Edison's first motion pictures and the first motion picture ever copyrighted showed his employee Fred Ott pretending to sneeze.

The major problem at the time, though, was that good film for motion pictures was not available. That all changed in 1893 when Eastman Kodak began supplying motion picture film stock, making it possible for Edison to step up the production of new motion pictures. To do this, he built a motion picture production studio in New Jersey that had a roof that could be opened to let in daylight. The entire building was constructed so that it could be moved to stay in line with the sun. C. Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat invented a film projector called the Vitascope and asked Edison to supply the films and manufacture the projector under his name. Eventually, the Edison Company developed its own projector, known as the Projectoscope, and stopped marketing the Vitascope. The first motion pictures shown in a "movie theater" in America were presented to audiences on April 23, 1896, in New York City. Thomas Edison and the First Phonograph Thomas Edison and the First Phonograph August 12, 1877 The next time you listen to a favorite album, you can thank Thomas Edison for discovering the secret to recording sound. Before there were CD players and tape decks, there was the phonograph.

August 12, 1877 is the date popularly given for Thomas Edison's completion of the model for the first phonograph. Edison was trying to improve the telegraph transmitter when he noticed that the movement of the paper tape through the machine produced a noise resembling spoken words when played at a high speed. Experimenting with a stylus (hard-pointed instrument like a large needle) on a tinfoil cylinder, Edison spoke into the machine. Do you know the first words ever recorded? page 1 of 2 History of the Phonograph History of the Phonograph [fO' no graf'] an instrument for reproducing sounds by means of the vibration of a stylus or needle following a spiral groove on a revolving disc or cylinder The earliest known phonographic recording device was the phonautograph, invented by Edouard-Leon Scott and patented on March 25, 1857. The device consisted of a horn or barrel that focused sound waves onto a membrane to which a hog's bristle was attached, causing the bristle to move and enabling it to inscribe a visual medium. The first version made recordings onto a lamp-blackened glass plate.

Later versions, such as the one shown here, used a medium of lamp-blackened paper on a drum or cylinder. The phonautograph was primarily a laboratory curiosity for the study of acoustics, used to determine the vibrations per second for a musical pitch and to study sound and speech, and had no means for playing back the recorded sound. The first practical phonograph that could play back the sounds it had transcribed was invented by Thomas Alva Edison in 1877. The recording medium was a small metal cylinder wrapped in tin foil, which was mounted on an axle that could be rotated. Next to the cylinder was a mouthpiece with a diaphragm. A needle attached to the diaphragm was placed against the cylinder. As someone spoke into the mouthpiece, the cylinder was rotated. The sound waves made the diaphragm and needle vibrate, which in turn made dents in the foil -- the dents representing the original sound waves. The first sounds recorded on the phonograph were Edison's words "Mary had a little lamb." To play the sound back, another needle attached to a diaphragm was placed against the cylinder.

As the cylinder was rotated, the dents in the tin foil made the needle and diaphragm vibrate, producing sounds roughly similar to the originals. Edison intended his phonograph to be used primarily as a dictating machine in offices, however, and did very little to improve upon the device. In 1885, Chichester A. Bell and Charles S. Tainter, invented the Graphophone. It had a cardboard cylinder coated with wax instead of a metal cylinder wrapped in tin foil. The mechanism for recording was similar to that on Edison's machine, except that instead of dents the recording needle produced grooves. While the graphophone reproduced sound with much greater accuracy and clarity than Edison's phonograph, the wax-coated cylinders had to be stored carefully to prevent the wax from being damaged. What's more, each cylinder had to be individually recorded, making them too expensive for the general public to enjoy. In 1887, Emile Berliner, who had come to the United States from Germany, invented the Gramophone, which used a flat disk instead of a cylinder. He also invented a process for mass-producing the disks, which he called Records.

Mass-production greatly reduced the cost of individual records, making it possible for the general public to buy them, meaning that millions of people now had the ability to hear some of the most popular singers of the day without having to travel to a major venue to see them in person. Early phonographs had spring motors and had to be wound by hand to be played. The motors sometimes ran too fast or too slow, making the music sound odd. The needle mechanisms of such phonographs did not respond to low bass or high treble notes, so bass drums and violins could not be heard clearly. In the mid-1920's, manufacturers began to produce phonographs with electric motors and amplifiers that made them easier to play and greatly improved their sound quality. Until 1948, all commercial records were played at 78 rpm. They were made of a shellac and clay mixture and were easily broken. LP records, played at 33-1/3 rpm, were developed at the Columbia Broadcasting System Laboratories under the direction of Peter Goldmark, an electrical engineer, and Columbia Records Inc. introduced the LP record to the public in 1948.

Unbreakable plastic LP records created a demand for high-fidelity phonographs, and stereophonic phonographs and records were introduced in 1958. By the late 1960's, almost all new phonographs and records were stereophonic.

Question: Who patented the phonograph in 1877?
Answer: Thomas Edison