Edison's Invention of the Phonograph

In July of 1877, Edison filed his first patent in Great Britain on a sound recording and reproduction of sound. A full specification for the phonograph was filed in April, 1878. In the meantime, his associate John Krusei constructed a device that looked much like the Phonautograph, but with a sheet of heavy tin foil wrapped around the cylinder. By cranking the handle and shouting into the horn, the machine recorded the voice in the form of indentations in a spiral path on the tinfoil. But putting the stylus back into the groove at the beginning of the recording and cranking the handle, the machine reproduced the voice.

During 1878, the first 600 or so tin foil phonographs were made by several small machine shops at Edison's request. These were distributed to demonstrate the principle of phonography. A German company licensed the patent rights and attempted to build a talking doll. The dolls did not work very well and most were returned by unhappy customers. Following this, Edison moved on to work on other projects and paid little attention to the phonograph for almost a decade.

 

 

 

 

A "talking doll manufactured by an early licensee of the phonograph patents.