ABSTRACT
The gramophone was second only to the camera and the radio as a widely advertised, popularly owned instrument of mechanical reproduction in the first half of the twentieth century. Thomas Edison’s early phonograph (patented 1877) not only reproduced sounds, but could record them—giving rise to the advertising slogan, “His Master’s Voice,” applied to the widely circulated image of an endearing dog, gazing loyally at the antique horn that served as the speaker for masculine authority. The gramophone, invented and named by Emil Berliner (1887), used the same technology of a stylus or needle vibrating in grooves to produce sound, but it replaced Edison’s bulky cylinders with flat, circular discs—our modern records—which could more easily be reproduced from molds made of the original master disc, and more easily stored and transported. In the British lexicon, gramophone was both the generic mechanical instrument and the trade name of the Gramophone Company. The Victor Talking Machine Company’s brand name, the Victrola (dating from 1906), had comparable generic power in the United States, with the additional commercial advantage of their slogan and trademarked dog. The terms “phonograph,” “record player,” and finally “stereo,” signaling a further refinement of dual sound grooves in the late 1950s, have since found greater usage. Both stylus and turntable are now disappearing from the multimedia systems that claim ever larger cabinet space in our homes.
