ABSTRACT
An American firm, established in 1891 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, originally offering trade-related home study courses for miners in the region. In 1901, when they had enrolled more than 350,000 students, they also began giving language study courses (French, German, and Spanish, with Italian added later), aided by Edison cylinders. They were Edison’s first molded records, of a surface sufficiently durable to allow for the repetitive playback required in language study; 24 records were included in each of the available languages. In 1902 the firm printed its first catalog entirely devoted to language instruction.
