recovered sufficiently to imagine that he could improve on the phonograph without violating Edison’s patents, using a technique “which can be turned to immediate account so as probably to realize a large fortune in a couple of months or so.” Time would show that he really did have the germ of the idea for what would become formidable competition for the phonograph—his “graphophone” would play wax-coated discs rather than foil-wrapped cylinders—but it would be a long while before it was ready for market. No quick, large fortune for him, but none for Edison, either.
CHAPTER TWO
THE WIZARD OF MENLO PARK
J ANUARY –A PRIL 1878
A S A BUSINESSPERSON poised to bring the phonograph to market, Thomas Edison was hindered as much as helped by experience. Having long worked within the world of telegraphic equipment, he had been perfectly placed to receive the technical inspiration for the phonograph. But that same world, oriented to a handful of giant industrial customers, had nothing in common with the consumer marketplace. It was impossible for Edison to imagine the phonograph as the basis for a new home-entertainment industry. His lieutenants were slow to appreciate the possibilities, too. “The Phonograph is creating an immense stir,” Edward Johnson wrote a business acquaintance, “but I think it impresses people more as a toy than as a practical machine.” It was as a toy that Edison planned to first introduce the phonograph, but he favored a passive role for himself: let others do the manufacturing, worry about the sales, and send him a royalty check, leaving him free to pursue a life of ceaseless inventing.
In early January 1878, Edison signed a contract with Oliver Russell to bring out an array of toys—dolls, trains, birds—all of which would be endowed with the power of speech or sound effects, thanks to a hidden phonograph. To pursue opportunities for the phonograph beyond the realm of toys, music boxes, and clocks, Edison signed with a syndicate of five investors later that month who set up the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company. The syndicate gave him an immediate payment of $10,000 to “perfect” the instrument, that is, to complete the development work to ready the invention for the market. Edison would receive a 20 percent royalty on net proceeds. He insisted on embedding a clause in the agreement that protected his future royalty payments from price-cutting: phonographs had to be sold for $80 or more unless he personally granted an exception.
The investors feared that Edison would exhaust the $10,000 advance before the phonograph would be ready for the market. After the agreement was signed, they tried to arrange to have the money placed in a trust. Edison would not approve, feeling (correctly) that, as one of the investors wrote another, the proposed change “was a reflection upon his ability to take care of himself.”
According to a psychological profile published at the time in the
Phrenological Journal,
his backers had to be flexible and patient, as Edison was apt to “show irritability and people who do not understand him may think he is impatient and fretful.” The journal expressed concern that if Edison did not take proper care of himself, “he will become exhausted and break down.”
Improving the phonograph’s sound clarity, natural intonation, and volume of reproduced speech were Edison’s principal concerns. Mechanizing the turning of the cylinder when it played back a recording seemed to solve many of the problems with quality. In his lab, he used an industrial belt to hook up a phonograph to the overhead shaft that was connected to a steam engine, the source of the power for his machine shop. The results were stunning. Edison wrote one of his representatives in Europe, “Letters can be dictated & copied
with ease.
The singing is beautiful in fact I am overjoyed.”
The typical office or home parlor was unlikely to have an industrial steam engine already on the
CHAPTER TWO
THE WIZARD OF MENLO PARK
J ANUARY –A PRIL 1878
A S A BUSINESSPERSON poised to bring the phonograph to market, Thomas Edison was hindered as much as helped by experience. Having long worked within the world of telegraphic equipment, he had been perfectly placed to receive the technical inspiration for the phonograph. But that same world, oriented to a handful of giant industrial customers, had nothing in common with the consumer marketplace. It was impossible for Edison to imagine the phonograph as the basis for a new home-entertainment industry. His lieutenants were slow to appreciate the possibilities, too. “The Phonograph is creating an immense stir,” Edward Johnson wrote a business acquaintance, “but I think it impresses people more as a toy than as a practical machine.” It was as a toy that Edison planned to first introduce the phonograph, but he favored a passive role for himself: let others do the manufacturing, worry about the sales, and send him a royalty check, leaving him free to pursue a life of ceaseless inventing.
In early January 1878, Edison signed a contract with Oliver Russell to bring out an array of toys—dolls, trains, birds—all of which would be endowed with the power of speech or sound effects, thanks to a hidden phonograph. To pursue opportunities for the phonograph beyond the realm of toys, music boxes, and clocks, Edison signed with a syndicate of five investors later that month who set up the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company. The syndicate gave him an immediate payment of $10,000 to “perfect” the instrument, that is, to complete the development work to ready the invention for the market. Edison would receive a 20 percent royalty on net proceeds. He insisted on embedding a clause in the agreement that protected his future royalty payments from price-cutting: phonographs had to be sold for $80 or more unless he personally granted an exception.
The investors feared that Edison would exhaust the $10,000 advance before the phonograph would be ready for the market. After the agreement was signed, they tried to arrange to have the money placed in a trust. Edison would not approve, feeling (correctly) that, as one of the investors wrote another, the proposed change “was a reflection upon his ability to take care of himself.”
According to a psychological profile published at the time in the
Phrenological Journal,
his backers had to be flexible and patient, as Edison was apt to “show irritability and people who do not understand him may think he is impatient and fretful.” The journal expressed concern that if Edison did not take proper care of himself, “he will become exhausted and break down.”
Improving the phonograph’s sound clarity, natural intonation, and volume of reproduced speech were Edison’s principal concerns. Mechanizing the turning of the cylinder when it played back a recording seemed to solve many of the problems with quality. In his lab, he used an industrial belt to hook up a phonograph to the overhead shaft that was connected to a steam engine, the source of the power for his machine shop. The results were stunning. Edison wrote one of his representatives in Europe, “Letters can be dictated & copied
with ease.
The singing is beautiful in fact I am overjoyed.”
The typical office or home parlor was unlikely to have an industrial steam engine already on the
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