History of the Phonograph

Phonograph, which has been being used for playing recorded sound, finds its roots in the phonautograph that was invented in 1857. Many scientists have contributed to the invention of the phonograph, commonly known by the name, gramophone. Let us peek into the history of the creation of this popular audio playing device, the phonograph.

History of the Phonograph

Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville, a French printer and bookseller from Paris, devised a phonautograph and patented it on March 25, 1857. Phonautograph lacked the means to play back sound after recording it.

Charles Cros, a French scientist postulated the phonograph theory, but was unable to manufacture a working model. Thomas Edison had created a working phonograph by the time Cros’s theory was made public. Hence, both Edison and Charles Cross are attributed with independent discoveries of the phonograph.

In 1877, Edison came up with the principles of sound recording and reproduction of sound. On November 21, 1877, Thomas Edison declared that he had invented a phonograph and he demonstrated it for the first time on November 29. The first phonograph designed by Edison consisted of a phonograph cylinder of tinfoil onto which sound could be recorded by means of a stylus.

In 1886, Charles Sumner Tainter and Chichester Bell patented vertically modulated engraved recordings that used wax-coated cylinders. Their patent was known as graphophone. In 1887, Emile Berliner, an American inventor born in Germany, came up with his version of phonograph and patented it as the gramophone. The gramophone was based on a system of recording that used the lateral movement of a stylus that moved spirally over a zinc disc. May 1989 witnessed the opening of the very first phonograph parlor in San Francisco, where customers could select songs to be played on phonographs. Perhaps, the idea of jukeboxes and music parlors of today, are derivatives of the phonograph parlors of the olden times.