How it began
While working to improve the efficiency of a telegraph transmitter, Thomas Edison noticed that the machine's tape gave off a noise resembling spoken words when played at high speed. He wondered whether he could record a telephone message, and attached a needle to the diaphragm of a telephone receiver. His experiments led him to a stylus on a tinfoil cylinder, which played back the short message he recorded, "Mary had a little lamb." August 12, 1877, is the popular date for the first model, but the Library of Congress considers November or December more likely, since Edison filed for the patent on December 24, 1877.
How it works
In the first phonograph, a piece of tinfoil was wrapped around a cylinder. The user shouted a short message into a mouthpiece while turning a handle. Inside the mouthpiece a needle vibrated with the voice and pressed a groove into the foil. A needle on the other side could then trace the groove and play back what had been recorded. After a few plays the foil would tear and the message was lost, which is why the tinfoil recordings can no longer be played.
What changed first
According to the Library of Congress, Edison's discovery was met first with incredulity and then with awe, and it earned him the nickname "The Wizard of Menlo Park." The National Park Service notes that the phonograph was Edison's favorite invention, which he called his "baby," and that he kept improving it for the next fifty years.
What lasted
A sound recording industry evolved from the invention and became a source of popular entertainment, as recordings of concerts, comic sketches, opera and other performances were sold to the American public to play at home. Later phonographs played records, first cylinders with the music on the outside and later discs. The Library of Congress also credits Emile Berliner with developing the flat recording disc and the gramophone player.
