Beginnings of The Commercial Record Industry
In 1887 Edison Labs turned their attention back to improving the phonograph and the phonograph cylinder. The following year, the Edison company debuted the Perfected Phonograph. Edison introduced wax cylinders 41⁄4 inches (11 cm) long, 21⁄4 inches (5.7 cm) in diameter, playing some 2 minutes of music or entertainment, which became the industry standard. Experimental music records were made around this time. The "brown wax" cylinder made its debut in March/April 1889. "Electric Light Quadrille" by Issler's Orchestra (external link) is an example of an 1889 brown wax cylinder (Superbatone #734--"The Real Sound of Ragtime").
Blank records were an important part of the business early on. Most phonographs had or could be fitted with attachments for the users to make their own recordings. One important early use, in line with the original term for a phonograph as a "talking machine", was in business for recording dictation. Attachments were added to facilitate starting, stopping, and skipping back the recording for dictation and playback by stenographers. The business phonograph eventually evolved into a separate device from the home entertainment phonograph. Edison Record's brand of business phonograph was called The Ediphone; see Phonograph cylinder and Dictaphone. Edison also holds the achievement of being one of the first companies to record the first African-American quartet to record: the Unique Quartet.
Read more about this topic: Edison Records
Famous quotes containing the words beginnings of, beginnings, commercial, record and/or industry:
“The frantic search of five-year-olds for friends can thus be seen to forecast the beginnings of a basic shift in the parent-child relationship, a shift which will occur gradually over many long years, and in which a child needs not only the support of child allies engaged in the same struggle but also the understanding of his parents.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“Let us, then, take our compass; we are something, and we are not everything. The nature of our existence hides from us the knowledge of first beginnings which are born of the nothing; and the littleness of our being conceals from us the sight of the infinite. Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“If men could menstruate ... clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event: Men would brag about how long and how much.... Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons, Muhammed Ali’s Rope-a-Dope Pads, John Wayne Maxi Pads, and Joe Namath Jock Shields—”For Those Light Bachelor Days.””
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)
“Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rime;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“My plan of instruction is extremely simple and limited. They learn, on week-days, such coarse works as may fit them for servants. I allow of no writing for the poor. My object is not to make fanatics, but to train up the lower classes in habits of industry and piety.”
—Hannah More (1745–1833)