Edison Announces Phonograph: Sound Can Be Recorded
Thomas Edison announced the phonograph on November 21, 1877, after his assistant John Kruesi built a working prototype from Edison's sketch in 30 hours. Edison shouted 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' into a diaphragm connected to a needle that cut grooves into a rotating cylinder wrapped in tinfoil. When the needle was repositioned and the cylinder replayed, the machine spoke back. Edison was stunned by his own invention. Scientists had theorized about recording sound for decades, but nobody had actually done it. The first public demonstration at the offices of Scientific American drew crowds that blocked Broadway traffic. Edison envisioned the phonograph as a dictation machine for offices. He didn't anticipate its true future: recorded music. That industry, built on his cylinder (later replaced by Emile Berliner's flat disc), would eventually generate hundreds of billions of dollars.
November 21, 1877
149 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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