Today in 1878, Thomas Edison was issued a patent (US 200,521) for “improvement in phonograph or speaking machines.”
“The object of this invention,” says Edison’s patent, “is to record in permanent characters the human voice and other sounds, from which characters such sounds may be reproduced and rendered audible again at a future time.”
A few months earlier, on December 22, 1877, Scientific American published a note that started “Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came to this office, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine inquired us to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was very well and bid us a cordial goodnight.” Earlier that month, on December 6, Edison recorded his voice on the phonograph for the first time, reciting “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
In Edison’s 1878 North American Review article, “The Phonograph and its Future,” music appears fourth on his list of possible uses for the phonograph, and only in the form of a personalized message. Further down the list, however, Edison mentions a new and improved “music-box.” Indeed, with further improvements and commercialization by other inventors, the speaking machine turned primarily into a music recording and playback device.
Steven Lubar in InfoCulture: “With the invention of the phonograph, music had changed. It had become a commodity, something to be bought and sold. And music had become an ‘industry.’… [by the 1920s] The Edison phonograph sounded old-fashioned. Indeed, all recorded music sounded old-fashioned compared to the radio. In 1924 radio sales boomed, while record sales fell from over 100 million in 1927 to only 6 million in 1932… Sales would not rise again until the industry began seeing radio as an ally rather than a foe.”
The December 1877 Scientific American article ends with some delicious predictions, including: “It is already possible by ingenious optical contrivances to throw stereoscopic photographs of people on screens in full view of an audience. Add the talking phonograph to counterfeit their voices, and it would be difficult to carry the illusion of real presence much further.”