The Phonograph

Edison's experiments with the telephone also got him thinking about ways to record telephone messages so they could be copied later; this was a similar idea to the devices used with the telegraph to write down the dots and dashes of Morse code.  But then Edison turned the problem in a new direction and started to think about recording sound--any sound--as something separate.  He sketched and tested and modified ways to capture sound on the surfaces of cylinders or disks.

Edison (center) with the group of workers who helped develop the phonograph Smithsonian neg. # 87-1606

In 1877, one of these designs worked!  He wrapped a thick sheet of tinfoil around a metal cylinder.  Then, turning a crank that moved the cylinder along a screw and shouting into a cone attached to a thin diaphragm and needle (or stylus), Edison tested the new machine.  When the sound waves of his speech vibrated the diaphragm, it moved the needle up and down, making dents in the tinfoil.  Cranking the cylinder back to its original position and putting the needle back into the grooves it had made, Edison and his workers listened in amazement to the first recording of a human voice--Edison reciting "Mary Had a Little Lamb!"

One of his first reactions to hearing the playback was to be worried!  He often said, "I was always afraid of things that worked the first time." 10 Originally, Edison didn't think of using the phonograph for entertainment.  He expected that businesses would use it for dictating letters.  He manufactured an entire line of "Ediphones" for office use.  But the real future of the phonograph lay in bringing music into people's homes. Edison's company not only made phonographs but also ran recording studios and produced cylinder recordings of some of the most famous talent of the day.

Edison and a model demonstrating the Ediphone in the West Orange lab's library, July 20, 1914. Smithsonian neg. # 87-1644