By Kilkenni
In December 1877, a young man came into the office of the Scientific American magazine and presented a small and simple machine. He turned the crank, and the machine said: “Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph?”. Such was the beginning of one of the most remarkable inventions of the 19th century. This incredible talking device brought music to houses of ordinary people, made it possible to record one’s own voice and took many countries by storm.
Coming to Terms
For a start, we need to figure out what a phonograph is. But let’s begin from the very beginning first.
The phonograph, a device for recording and replaying sound, was one of the first and most successful Thomas Edison’s inventions. It was patented by him in 1878 and underwent multiple modifications and improvements, made by both Edison and his company and other inventors.
This device used a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around. The phonograph had two diaphragm and needle units: one recorded and another played sound. When a sound was made (originally one could only speak into a mouthpiece), its vibrations indented on the cylinder by the first, recording needle (or stylus) in a groove pattern. During recording the cylinder had to be rotated slowly by a handle that was connected to a spring motor. To play the sound back, another needle “translated” the groove back into vibrations onto the diaphragm and then to the horn, from which the sound could be heard.
Ten years later Emil Berliner came up with another way of recording, on flat disks instead of cylinders… And this is where it gets a bit complicated.
Some people, especially in the US, believe that the word “phonograph” applies to any device that plays back sounds using a needle and a cylinder or disk. But it is more common to make a distinction between different devices, and so a phonograph is the device that uses cylinders, while a gramophone uses flat disks or records, as we know them now. We’ll stick to this distinction here: cylinder-using devices are phonographs and disk-using machines are gramophones.
The Groove to Success
Before the phonograph, people couldn’t listen to recorded music at home, so it was an instant sensation. Despite this initial success, however, the invention almost fell into obscurity in a year. It was all due to difficulties with operating the machine and the fragility of the tin foil that was used for recording. Thankfully, Edison and other inventors made improvements soon.
Wax replaced tin foil, styluses were modified, and phonogrpahs entered the road to entertainment. Edison’s company released phonographs with slots for coins, like jukeboxes, and soon, people could buy cylinders with marches and popular songs, comic performances and even “reports” describing (with reenacted sounds) notable events.
There were still some problems, of course. For example, it was impossible to mass duplicate cylinders, and performers had to repeat their performances over and over, which was understandably expensive for companies. This problem was solved by making bigger cylinders in 1899 for the Concert Phonograph. Even though this model could play longer records, it wasn’t very popular, and its production stopped in 1912. Mass-produced duplicate wax cylinders started to appear in 1901. They were molded, not engraved by a stylus. Using just one mold, a company could produce 120 to 150 cylinders a day. This considerably lowered the price for cylinders, to 35 cents.
By the turn of the century, phonographs and gramophones became “the rage” in many countries, they got more affordable, and the length of cylinder records increased from two minutes to four minutes in 1908, when Edison’s Amberol Records were introduced. These cylinders had finer grooves and could now play for as long as flat disks. Then the Amberola I phonograph appeared a year later, which offered a higher quality of performance (the Grand Opera Amberols, four minute opera arias, were released the same year).
Soon it became clear that disks were better than cylinders, and many companies abandoned the latter by the 1910s: for example, Columbia stopped producing its own cylinders in 1909 and left the market in 1912, focusing on flat disks. Victor, the producer of Victrolas, made disks even more popular by releasings records with famous performers. But cylinders were still there, and they kept evolving. In the autumn of 1912, Edison introduced the Blue Amberol Records, which could play for 4 minutes 45 seconds, were unbreakable and had the best sound quality at the time. However, it was the peak for cylinders. The larger public made the choice: flat disks were the future of sound recording.
The Flatter the Better
Flat disks were introduced in the 1890s by Emile Berliner, who also coined the term “gramophone”. They quickly evolved, along with gramophones, and by 1901, a new company was formed, the Victor Talking Machine. Unlike cylinders, disks could be reproduced from the beginning, thanks to negatives that were made from “master discs”.
For some time, all disc records were one-sided. But in 1904, first double-sided disks appeared in Europe and then, after Victor bought the rights, in the US. Columbia tried to join this two-sided market in 1908, but Victor sued them. Alas, it only led to the concept going into the public domain, and after that other companies could fit more songs in their records.
Another marketing advantage of disks was their paper label. These labels were introduced in 1900, and soon red labels became a mark of quality. Victor’s Read-Seal operatic records entered the market in 1903, introducing Enrico Caruso to the eager public.
Like Edison, Berliner had several companies established, in different countries, including Japan. There may be some confusion when it comes to the famous His Master’s Voice logo, with the dog Nipper curiously listening to a disk gramophone. By the way, in the original painting Nipper was listening to a cylinder phonograph, because the painting was commissioned (and then declined) by Edison. His Master’s Voice was Victor’s trademark phrase in the USA, but not a brand name. The brand name belonged to the Gramophone Company and was one of the most successful record labels, created in 1901 in Great Britain. This company was indirectly associated with the Victor Company. In any case, HMV (the label) became one of the leading producers of musical records, featuring many popular singers. Singers, both opera and music hall, were happy to get deals, because just a few records could make them famous in different countries. Caruso was one of the main examples of this “record fame”. Most of the manufacturers of talking machines, as they were generally called, also released their own records, trying to get big names to perform for them.But HMV was especially successful at it.
How to Enjoy a Talking Machine
The process was rather simple. If you want to listen to some music over a phonograph — and companies catered to all tastes — you need to take a wax cylinder with a prerecorded song. Make sure to avoid touching the outer surface: stick your fingers inside instead and install the cylinder, aligning it with the needle. The title is written on the beveled end of the cylinder, but if it was produced before 1909, you’ll hear the announcement at the beginning, telling you what song you are about to listen and who performs it.
Yes, it was usually just one song (or a monologue), because cylinders could only record four minutes at most. Keep in mind that one cylinder can be played a little over 100 times. Unless, that is, you own the indestructable series, cylinders made of celluloid: those can be played thousands of times and do not break. If you want to record something without buying new cylinders, however, it’s best to stick to wax ones as they can be shaved and recorded over.
The machine will move the record slowly itself as it plays on, so you can sit by and enjoy. Although you may want to be quiet, because phonogrpahs aren’t exactly loud, unless your horn is big enough.
To record something, just install an empty (or shaved) cylinder, align it with the recording needle, and speak into the mouthpiece or, preferably, horn. Speaking more loudly than you usually do is advised. Modern models usually don’t require turning the crank all along, you only need to start the motor.
If you prefer flat disks, you may own an external horn gramophone (Victor or other models), the classical machine with a horn outside, or an internal horn gramophone (Victrola or other models), with its horn hidden inside the cabinet. Some internal horn gramophones were small table models, but most of them had to stand on the floor.
Before playing anything, choose a good needle. Steel needles should be only used once. Not because they could damage the record, rather the record which contain an abrasive would wear down the needle. And once it’s dull, it will damage your records. Companies offered all kinds of special needles, even cactus ones, and for different records, for example, loud, medium and soft tone versions made by Victor. The thicker the needle the the higher the volume. Most of the needles have to be changed regularly, after a few dozens of plays, to avoid damage to the disks, unless they are outfitted with the Sapphire needle point that “never needs replacing, nor does it wear out or scratch the record”.
It’s also wise to invest in a good horn, keeping in mind not just its size (the bigger the louder), but also its material, because it could affect the sound.
Now, when everything is ready, you need to start the device by turning the crank. Depending on the model, you can wind the motor with a few turns of the crank or up to 50 turns, if the model is expensive and has three or four motors. Once the turntable begins to move, put on the record, one- or two-sided, and place the needle carefully, to the right side of the center spindle. If you don’t wind the crank properly, the motor will slow down and you’d need to wind it again mid-playing. Sometimes a record plays too quickly or too slowly, so don’t forget about the speed control knob by the turntable. This little device is very helpful when you have records with various recorded speed (from 60 to 80 revolutions per minute). But if you do everything right, you can peacefully enjoy the record… until you need to change its side or take another disk.
Most importantly, never forget to clean the machine with a soft cloth and apply a few drops of phonograph or gramophone oil.
The Home is Alive with the Sounds of Music
So, be it a cylinder phonograph or a disk gramophone, music came to many houses all over the world. There were different models for people with different incomes, and even the poor could afford a cheaper machine. Of course, they had their critics: some of them claimed that recorded music was narcissistic, while others believed that people would become stupid from it. But hardly anyone listened to them: everyone was busy listening to music and voices. The craze got so big that there were even edible records made of chocolate.
And indeed, people could listen to the songs or speeches recorded by them or their close ones. Each phonograph was also a recorder, and amateurs could make records at home, or friends could record little messages to each other. And in the 1908 presidential election in the States, candidates recorded their speeches that were sold to the public, much to everyone’s excitement.
That these machines came in all shapes and sizes is no exaggeration. The simple table models were the most common and popular, however, there were more elaborate options. Phonograph or gramophone cabinets decorated rooms with sculptures that had the machines concealed in their bases. Parlour gramophones, which were floor models, had cabinets beneath where one could store records. Edison’s Phonograph Toy Manufacturing produced talking dolls in 1890. They had smaller wax cylinders in their bodies and could repeat whatever was said to them or say nursery rhymes.
And of course, there were all sorts of accessories. Here’s a fraction of what was advertised in the beginning of the 20th century:
- horns of different styles and sizes: brass, silk finish, flower, even wooden;
- paper lacquered horns for phonographs (no metallic or brassy sound!);
- horn supports (stands or cranes) and horn covers;
- cylinder or record carrying cases and cabinets;
- needles of different varieties for various kinds of music (came in packages, sometimes with up to 300 needles);
- needle boxes;
- sharpening kits for needles;
- record brushes for cylinders and disks alike;
- sound modifiers and clarifiers;
- oils for cleaning, polishing and preventing rust.
Records could only fit two or three songs at most, but no one had any complaints. Anyone could now listen to an opera aria or a popular song without visiting a theater or music hall. The singers themselves did not complain either: they became much more popular, after all! A little dance party was possible in any house. Children listened to stories over gramophones. Friends and families gathered to recite poetry and novels into a phonograph’s mouthpiece. Those eager to learn foreign languages used the International Correspondence Schools’ system, attaching headphones to the Edison Gem phonograph and listening to 25 conversational records in Spanish, French or German (listen to a very quick French lesson from the early 1900s). But the beauty of these machines, particularly of phonographs, was that they could be taken elsewhere.
On the Move
Back in 1878, Edison already offered such possible uses for the phonograph as dictation without the aid of a stenographer, the preservation of languages, the preservation of teachers’ explanations, so that the pupil could refer to them at any moment, among others. This meant that the device had to be portable, and indeed it was, from the very beginning.
As a rule, phonographs came in cases with handles, which already implies that they could be carried around. In such a case, a phonograph was less than 30 cm tall and could be considered hand luggage. Many people travelled with phonographs (and specially made cylinder cases), for different purposes. It wasn’t just for entertainment, however. Actual researchers embarked on all sorts of journeys with their trusty recording machines.
One of the first people who appreciated the phonograph were ethnographers. They travelled to remote Eastern European villages and to the jungles of Amazon to record languages and folktales of natives. Phonographs also made it possible for people to hear folk music from different regions, while scholars studied this same music for the first time. In 1905, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály began collecting Hungarian folk songs. They recorded them on countless cylinders (there were some 16,000 recordings), then transcribed and thus started the scientific study of folk music, developing a method that is still used in musicology, or ethnomusicology, as Bartók called it. Many other researchers followed suit.
Some of the languages or dialects were preserved thanks to those phonograph records. These days, wax cylinders that hold the only existing records of indigenous languages are being preserved and digitized for further studies. Interestingly, one of the first notable fictional characters with a phonograph was a professor of phonetics, the one and only Henry Higgins from Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and later the musical My Fair Lady.
Then there were ornithologists. Eager scientists and enthusiasts alike roamed forests, jungles and fields to record different birds and their signature songs. Some of these records, made by or for major universities, even sold to the wider audience from 1910.
At last, people could preserve sounds. Yet research wasn’t the only reason some travelled with talking machines…
Record sales for records
It wasn’t difficult to see how lucrative the talking machine business was, especially in the early 1900s. From year to year, the companies’ sales revenues grew dramatically. Apart from the three giants — Edison’s, Victor and Columbia — there were countless smaller companies which made slightly different devices. Graphopones, talkophones, reginaphones, zonophones, miraphones, tournaphones — those are just several names that popped up in the 1900s and 1910s. No matter how big or small the company was, it did its best to persuade people to buy their products. And then there were the manufacturers of accessories and producers of records. Like in many other industries, advertising became the driving force of this business.
Of course, first of all, ads appeared in newspapers and magazines. They praised their talking machines to interest anyone. This machine was perfect for dancing at home. That machine would bring your family together. The other was a necessary addition to any businessman’s office. Machines for teachers, machines for scientists, machines for opera lovers, machines for blind people… And, of course, the machines that were fit for everyone and for every possible purpose. After seeing several advertisem*nts, one would think that it was simply impossible to live without a phonograph or a gramophone in this modern age.
Don’t get me started on records. Curing Diseases with Music was an actual headline for an article/advertisem*nt in 1911. It claimed that the ancient Indian Vina music available on discs could “cure headaches, sleeplessnes, nervous exhaustion, mental depressions, hysteria, vertigo”. In general, music from “exotic” countries or Native American tribes was rather popular. Combining the postal card and talking machine crazes, one company proclaimed “the greatest novelty of the age” phono-record postcards. These were transparent records through which a postcard was visible. Called “indestructable”, they could be played over 100 times.
But then there was another new and fascinating technology: cinema. Big names, Edison in particular, quickly realized that film advertisem*nts could attract even more buyers, because they actually showed the product in action (by the way, each company had showrooms, and often rather fancy ones). The Stenographer’s Friend, a 7-minute long film/advertisem*nt for Edison’s business phonograph, is one of the few surviving videos of this kind. It’s rather long for the modern audience, but back in 1910 it did its job perfectly.
And in this film, we see the Edison agent, a dapper young man who would convince anyone that they should buy a talking machine. These men travelled the country, and sometimes to different countries, to sell their companies’ products. The industry’s magazines, like The Talking Machine World, discussed all kinds of topics, but one dominated the pages: all travelling salesmen, jobbers, and dealers had to make as much profit as possible. They had to live for their companies and only dream of selling more and more talking machines, records, and needles.
While each company had its own stores dotted around the country (or, if it was big enough, in other countries as well), they also allowed other, smaller firms, to sell their products. Such firms were called distributors. They usually represented two or three companies at once and attracted buyers by offering some unique accessories or records.
Companies also hired designers for their window displays, another important part of advertising. Stores were “dressed” for various occasions and showed the newest models, as well as records with famous performers or other novelties.
Finally, there were lawyers. The gramophone originally appeared simply because Edison wouldn’t allow anyone else to make phonographs. Like Disney today, his company had a large team of knowledgeable lawyers who were ready to destroy any brand that dared to replicate Edison’s patented designs. This was also the reason why there were so many -phones like miraphones or talkophones: thanks to slight modifications, small companies could sell their own products without paying Edison, Victor or Columbia. Still, it didn’t stop big (and not so big) names from suing everyone they could. Legal battles were constant, they could drag on for several years, and the best lawyers tried to ruin or defend different companies. Oftentimes it also required travelling somewhere.
And meanwhile, the wonderful talking machines continued evolving and entertaining people around the world. And on ships, too. Several shipping companies made sure to mention that their vessels had “band, piano, gramophone on board”. Were they on board the Titanic? The cargo manifest lists at least one “Edison gramophone”. And that’s just in the Cargo Hold. Phonographs and gramophones were popular in many public spaces and even more so in private, so it’s not difficult to imagine first and second class passengers enjoying some music in the privacy of their cabins or third class passengers gathering in the General Room to listen to a song or two over a portable phonograph. Because, as some ads quite rightfully stated, talking machines were the best way to bring people together.
Where you can listen to old records:
Belfer Cylinder Archive
UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive
LOC’s collection of Edison’s cylinder records
LOC’s collection of Berliner’s disc records
Victor records on the Internet Archives
