The Edison phonograph monthly (Mar 1906-Feb 1907)

EDISON PHONOGRAPH MONTHLY. 13 DID EDISON INVENT THE TALKING MACHINE? The letter given below was written by Frank L. Dyer, General Counsel of the National Phonograph Company. It was addressed to J. R. Schermerhorn, Chairman of Directors of the National Phonograph Company, Limited, London, and published in the London edition of the Edison Phonograph Monthly for January. This letter will be found very interesting by our readers. It sets at rest a controversy that has been carried on in a London talking machine publication and straightens out some errors that have found believers through the persistency of companies and individuals unfriendly to Mr. Edison. "My attention has been d Vected to the two letters in the "Talking Machine News" of the issues of October 15th and November 1st last, signed respectively 'Veritas' and 'Henry Seymour,' in which the question was discussed, 'Did Edison Invent the Talking Machine.' There are so many misstatements of fact and conclusion in these two communications that I hardly think that they will in any way disturb the verdict of history. Yet I cannot let the opportunity pass of telling again what every well informed person ought to know concerning this invention. "I have been associated with Mr. Edison as his counsel for years, am familiar with all his patents, have critically examined his note books, have read the contemporaneous literature relating to his inventions, have considered the testimony of his assistants, given in litigations within a few years after the development of those inventions, have frequently talked with Mr. Edison himself, with his experimenters and with eye witnesses, in order to develop a true history of his work, so that I submit that what I shall have to say on the subject comes with a fair degree of authority. "It is a fact that 'long antecedent to Edison's association with the Talking Machine, experiments in the direction of recording sound waves had been made, and that they had been attended with complete success.' This was the well known 'Phonautograph' of Leon Scott, an instrument in which a' hog bristle was vibrated by a diaphragm so as to develop a wave-like line on a blackened plate or drum. The instrument, however, was used only for the purpose of analysis of sound, and not for its synthesis. Although the Phonautograph had been well known for many years prior to Edison's work, no one ever perceived the possibility of obtaining a reproduction of original sound therefrom. The test of non-invention is not that a thing appears obvious after its accomplishment, but that it must follow as a necessaryconsequence of an original suggestion. When this test is applied to the Phonograph, the invention of the latter must be given a very high place. In fact, I think it is generally admitted by scientists that the Phonograph is one of the most remarkable mechanical accomplishments of mankind. Yet Mr. Edison's characteristic modesty regarding his own work was never better shown than when he saw a Phonautograph for the first time in the Smithsonian Institute ot Washington, after he had invented the Phonograph; he expressed surprise that Scott having gone so far had not seen that the lamp black record could have ben made permanent and could have been used to obtain a reproduction. "It is not a fact, as stated by 'Veritas,' that 'the reproduction of sound in the method of the talking machine was known in France contemporaneously, if not antecedently to the Edison boom,' unless this statement be properly qualified. The fact is that very shortly after Edison's invention had been made, but before his patents had issued Charles Cros deposited with the French Academy a sealed paper, substantially describing the modern gramophone, but that paper was not disclosed until the Phonograph had been actually exhibited in this country. Cros and Edison were undoubtedly independent inventors; both hit upon the same germ contemporaneously; Edison was slightly ahead of his French co-worker. Cros did not actually build a machine but based his ideas solely on theory. Edison, however, did build an actual working Phonograph and demonstrated the possibilities of the art. The claims of Edison and of Cros have been subjected to judicial determination and Edison has been declared the prior inventor. "So far as Mr. Berliner is concerned, it is well known that his work followed Edison's by many years; he was not in any sense a contemporary. "Regarding the claim that the Phonograph was the result of the joint work of Edison and his assistant Kruesi — if not wholly the work of the latter — this absurd claim has not to my knowlede ever been before seriously made. Kruesi was merely a skilled mechanic in Edison's employ and constructed the first machine from Edison's sketches. The testimony of everyone who was associated with Mr. Edison at the time, and who might be familiar with the fact, is to the effect that when Kruesi was requested to build a talking machine, he expressed the view that Mr. Edison's sanity ought to be looked into. I do not question the statement that the Phonograph in its original form was a mere philosophical toy, but I do deny most emphatically that Mr. Edison had no conception of its possibilities. As a matter of fact in 1878, Mr. Edison, writing of the future applications of the invention, said: "'Among the many uses to which the Phonograph will be applied are the following: 1. Letter writing and all kinds of dictation without the aid of a stenographer. 2. Phonographic books, that will speak to blind people without effort on their part. 3. The teaching of elocution. 4. Reproduction of music. 5. The "Family Record" — a registry of sayings, reminiscences, etc. by members of a family in their own voices, and of the last words of dying persons. 6. Music boxes and toys. 7. Clocks that should announce in articulate speech the time for going home, going to meals, etc. 8. The preservation of languages, by exact reproduction in the manner of pronouncing. 9. Educational purposes: such as preserving the explanation made by a teacher, so that the pupil can refer to them at any moment, and spelling or other lessons placed upon the Phonograph for convenience in committing to memory. 10. Connection with the telephone, so as to make the invention an auxiliary in the transmission of permanent in invaluable records, instead of being the recipient of momentary and fleeting communications.' "I have no desire to detract from the credit which should be given to Messrs. Bell and Tainter for their work in this field, but to all who remember the original graphophone, with its soft ozocerite cylinder, its steel recording and reproducing needles, and its faint and uncertain reproduction, must admit that this machine was as much of a "toy" as the original tin-foil phonograph. It was not until Edison again took up the Phonograph, about 1887, and proceeded to develop it commercially, that a practical and successful machine was obtained, and in this work I have no hesitation in saying that at least ninety-five per cent, of the accomplishment was done by Mr. Edison himself. He adopted the present standard of feed screw, and of diameter of the record; he invented the modern soap blank, the sapphire recorder and reproducer; he first made a recorder with a curved edge; he was the first to make a reproducer stylus with a rounded bearing surface; he invented the floating weight, which did away with all of the adjusting screws previously used; he suggested the modern diaphragm, and he outlined with his own hand the present mechanical design of the modern Phonograph. What else has been done that can be compared with this accomplishment? When we come to the modern moulded record we find that as early as 1888 Mr. Edison made moulds by vacuous deposit process, and was duplicating from them in his laboratory up to the time that the moulded record was put on the market. Even in a commercial sense, it is not a fact, as stated by Mr. Seymour, 'that the Columbia Company produced the first moulded record.' The National Phonograph Company put out its records one month before any of the original and very crude first moulded productions of the Columbia Company was marketed. As is well known, it was not until August, 1903, eighteen months afterwards, that the Columbia Company began to market its present type of moulded records. "If, therefore, the truth is to be ascertained, there can be only one answer to the question discussed by 'Veritas' and 'Henry Seymour,' and that is that Mr. Edison did invent the talking machine. More than that, lie was the father and creator not only of the modern talking machine business, hut of the modern moulded record. FRANK L. DYER."