Posted by: Mike in Cultural History, History Blog, History Today, Modern History, Personalities in History, Technology History, World History
Most of us are familiar with record players even though MP3 players, Compact Discs, and other digital media are the current popular technologies. Record players and their vinyl discs are making a comeback and is a nostalgic item for those of us old enough to remember when they were the best way to have music other than the radio. The phonograph is not a new technology but the history and development of it is fascinating. The first device built to record sound waves was invented in 1857 by Frenchman Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville. It could record the sound waves onto a medium but it had no way to play back the sound. It is known as a Phonautograph but was not a practical device since the sounds could not be reproduced. A French scientist, Charles Cros, developed a theory of phonograph operation but he never produced a functional device and his theory was published in December 1877 after Thomas Edison had a working model. It appears that both men developed their ideas independently.
Edison worked on his ideas between May and November of 1877 but he was not trying to create records, he was working on a way to “play back” recorded telegraph messages. In November 1877 he formally
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