Summary: Finding A Home For The Phonograph

Finding a Home for the Phonograph

A common saying states that “necessity is the mother of invention.” This was not the case, however, with the invention of the phonograph. In fact, it took nearly two decades of trial and error to determine a function for recorded sound in everyday life. Much of this technological lag was due to the novelty of sound recording. Prior the phonograph, people had little conception of recorded sounds. Unlike a photograph, which people could think of simply as a more realistic painting, sound recordings were unfamiliar and strange because there was not anything to compare them to. At the time, it seemed as if the possibilities were endless. When the phonograph first came out, Edison described a variety of different

However, the business phonograph never took off as Edison expected it to due to push-back from the men in offices who did not like dictating into a phonograph. Using the phonograph demanded certain behavior; these men much preferred to dictate to their female secretaries, with some suggesting that they “felt awkward, or silly talking to a machine.” This unpopularity was not only seen in the business sector. At the time, phonograph machines were leased out by regional stores which were part of the North American Phonograph Company, and they were having difficulty turning a profit. In the 1890, the directors of each regional branch came together to discuss the poor sales of the phonograph, when the director of the Pacific Phonograph Company mentioned that most of his revenue came from what he called a “nickel-in-the-slot” machine, which was a phonograph that accepted a nickel and played a short song or comedy bit. Though the quality of the recordings was still lacking, this model was extremely successful. The director, Mr. Glass, remarked: “I believe that for three of four years there is an enormous amount of money right in the nickel-in-the-slot phonograph.” Soon after this convention, nickel-in-the-slot machines were everywhere, allowing people to use the phonograph to listen to entertainment in public

With more and more people using the phonograph inside the home to play music, it soon became apparent that there was a need to make the machine more appear less conspicuous and blend more naturally into the home. Early on, when phonographs were still operating on the nickel-in-the-slot model, phonograph manufacturers used glass coverings for the machine, thereby allowing customers to watch the gears turn and the other mechanical parts move. As the music produced by phonographs became accepted as “real” music, there was a desire to hide these mechanical parts and to think of the machine as just another type of instrument. To achieve this goal, phonograph manufacturers began constructing elaborate wooden cabinets to house the phonographs, making the machines more attractive to