What Led to The Invention of the Phonograph?

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During the second industrial revolution in the late 1800's, mass production and manufacturing of goods began to rapidly expand. With these changes also came a change in fuel sources, which began moving towards more modern forms such as petroleum and electricity. With theses changes in production and power came new possibilities and ideas. Many great thinkers became invested technological advancement by leveraging the changes that came with the second industrial revolution. Thomas Edison came to be one of America's greatest inventors during this time. While working on a way to record telegraph messages using paper indentations, Thomas Edison came up with the idea that conversation held over telephone may be able to be recorded in a similar fashion. On Nov. 21, 1877, Thomas Edison publicly announced that he had invented a device that can record sound: The Phonograph. This invention would have a major impact around the globe at the time and to this day is the foundation for not only recorded telephone messages, but all forms of recorded audio.

What led to the invention of the Phonograph? Thomas Edison had many inventions and patents at the time, one of which was the automatic telegraph. Edison began work on a machine that was able to store telegraphic messages. His idea was to store these massages onto paper as a series of indentations. Later, these stored telegraphic messages could then be sent telegraphically once more. However during Edison's work improving the telegraph, he noticed that feeding the paper into the telegraph produced a sound resembling human voice. As said by Edison, “there's no doubt that I shall be able to store up & reproduce automatically at any future time the human voice perfectly.” Edison gave his mechani...

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... series of indentations on a form of physical media. By creating the phonograph, Edison has left a major impact all the way we experience entertainment and communicate. By starting start The Edison Speaking Phonograph Company on January 24, 1878, he is also responsible for laying the foundation for the audio recording industry. Edison's phonograph was able to reach far more people than would be possible with in-person conferences and performances. Musical recordings would serve to bridge gaps between people in a time when financial and ethnic difference were further segregating the population. Today we still benefit from the foundation laid by the phonograph. We can listen to all forms audio from around the world with ease, and with the advent of the third industrial revolution and the internet, recorded audio connects people around the world more than ever before.

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