North American Phonograph Company

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The North American Phonograph Company , also North American Phonograph Co. , Founded by Jesse H. Lippincott , was the first company that devoted itself to the joint, commercial marketing of phonographs and graphophones and laid the foundation for the talking machine industry at that time.

history

North American Phonograph Company
Jesse H. Lippincott founder of the North American Phonograph Co.

The beginnings

Front page of the first catalog of the North American Phonograph Co. from 1890.

The North American Phonograph Company was founded on July 14, 1888 by Jesse H. Lippincott in New York City , United States , with the objective of promoting the marketing of the talking machines developed at the time , the graphophone and the phonograph, and the commercial potential of which he attributed to the devices worthwhile to use for himself. He therefore decided not to take the pending legal disputes between the two inventor parties - on the one hand Thomas Alva Edison and his phonograph, on the other hand Chichester Alexander Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter , the further developers of the graphophone - as an occasion, not one to unite an insignificant share of the newly emerging speaking machine industry with himself and the company he founded. Lippincott and his employees Thomas R. Lombard, Georg S. Evans, Georg H. Fitzwilson and John Robinson succeeded in acquiring the exclusive distribution rights on the one hand from the American Graphophone Company and on the other hand from the Edison Phonograph Company , whereby the production of Graphophon and Phonograph remained in the hands of both companies.

Regional companies

By 1890, thirty-three regional companies had been founded, operating independently of one another as franchisees of the North American Phonograph Co. and operating the leasing business with phonographs and graphophones under strict conditions . Furthermore, each of these companies belonged to the National Phonograph Association, an umbrella organization created specifically for the purpose of mutual information exchange, which met for the first time from May 28 to 29, 1890 for its constituent meeting in Chicago.

During the same period in which the regional companies tried to establish themselves in the market, it became increasingly apparent that the business model conceived by Lippincott did not correspond to the required real conditions and consequently proved to be unsustainable. At the same time, serious quality problems occurred with the rented dictation machines, which led potential customers to reject the reel players. The greatest obstacle, however, turned out to be the fact that Lippincott, bound by contract, had insisted that the phonograph had a future solely as a dictation machine and not as an entertainment device . Recognizing that short-sightedness, some of the regional companies began looking for ways out of the existing misery quite early on. In particular, the Pacific Phonograph Company with the development of a phonograph with coin slot, a forerunner of the jukebox , as well as the Columbia Phonograph Company, also active in this area, stood out, with the Columbia Phonograph Company additionally producing and selling its own recorded phonograph cylinders for the jukeboxes operated.

insolvency

In sum of the existing problems, the North American Phonograph Company went into bankruptcy towards the end of 1890, due to which the original patent giver of the phonograph intervened. Edison repurchased the patent rights he had previously assigned to North American Phonograph Co for a significantly lesser amount of US $ 135,000 and took control of the company by purchasing shares in Lippincott, which in turn took over due to a serious illness Thomas R. Lombard, who changed the business model from renting out dictation machines to selling phonographs and graphophones, including accessories.

The change in business model did not, however, produce the expected success and the economic situation remained tense. Although the North American Phonograph Company published its first catalog, Catalog of Musical Phonograms in 1890 , began producing pre-recorded phonograms for the home in 1892, and published the Journal Phonogram from 1891 to 1893 , it did not succeed, despite the best efforts get a grip on existing problems. On the one hand, it turned out that the devices did not meet the wishes of potential customers, especially the price of 150 US dollars or higher, had a sales-inhibiting effect, on the other hand, it proved difficult to make satisfactory duplicates from the original original cylinders.

Furthermore, tensions arose when the Columbia Phonograph Company terminated its collaboration with the North American Phonograph Company in 1893 in order to be able to operate independently on the market according to their ideas. Ultimately, this is probably the main reason Edison broke away from the North American Phonograph Company by sending the company into final bankruptcy in 1894. Only in this way was it possible for him to regain complete control over his invention, with the aim of being able to get into the marketing of phonographs and phonograph cylinders for the entertainment sector himself. The subsequent litigation, which spanned a period of two years, ended in 1896 in Edison's favor. The competent courts allowed Edison to sell his devices and their accessories directly after payment of financial compensation. Edison paid for this and in the same year founded the National Phonograph Company , in direct competition with the Columbia Phonograph Company.

Regional companies

In 1890, there were thirty-four regional companies sharing the territory of the United States, as well as an agency that was based in Canada and served that market.

  • Alabama Phonograph Co.
  • Central Nebraska Phonograph Co.
  • Chicago Central Phonograph Co.
  • Colorado and Utah Phonograph Co.
  • Columbia Phonograph Co.
  • Eastern Pennsylvania Phonograph Co.
  • Florida Phonograph Co.
  • Georgia Phonograph Co.
  • Holland Brothers
  • Iowa Phonograph Co.
  • Kansas Phonograph Co.
  • Kentucky Phonograph Co.
  • Leeds and Co.
  • Louisiana Phonograph Co.
  • Metropolitan Phonograph Co.
  • Michigan Phonograph Co.
  • Minnesota Phonograph Co.
  • Missouri Phonograph Co.
  • Montana Phonograph Co.
  • Nebraska Phonograph Co.
  • New England Phonograph Co.
  • New Jersey Phonograph Co.
  • New York Phonograph Co.
  • Ohio Phonograph Co.
  • Old Dominion Phonograph Co.
  • Pacific Phonograph Co.
  • South Dakota Phonograph Co.
  • Spokane Phonograph Co.
  • State Phonograph Co. of Illinois
  • Tennessee Phonograph Co.
  • Texas Phonograph Co.
  • West Coast Phonograph Co.
  • Western Pennsylvania Phonograph Co.
  • Wisconsin Phonograph Co.
  • Wyoming Phonograph Co.

Pacific Phonograph Company

As early as 1889, the Pacific Phonograph Company and its chairman, Louis Glass, were looking for ways to introduce the phonograph and graphophone to a larger audience than was possible with the devices available for hire. Glass, believing it could be used as an entertainment device, added a coin-operated mechanism and four pairs of headphones to the dictation machines and presented these jukeboxes to the public for the first time in the Royal Saloon in San Francisco . For one nickel per piece of music, each listener could now use the pre-recorded phonograph cylinders for entertainment. The coin slot machines turned out to be so profitable that many other regional companies copied the idea and began to set up the machines themselves. The first jukeboxes of their time could now be used in salons, amusement parks, retail stores, beer gardens, ice cream parlors and in the waiting rooms of train and ferry stations.

Columbia Phonograph Company

The Columbia Phonograph Company, founded in 1889 by Edward D. Easton , like the Pacific Phonograph Company, was also successful in the music box business. In contrast to the other regional companies, it was in the comfortable position of exclusive distribution rights for the states of Maryland , Delaware and to be able to unite the District of Columbia for phonographs and graphophones. The reason for this was that those rights were sold to a group of investors consisting of shareholders and employees of the American Graphophone Company before the North American Phonograph Company was founded. Ultimately, this was also the reason why the Columbia Phonograph Company was the only regional company to survive the bankruptcy of the North American Phonograph Company in 1890 unscathed and henceforth dedicated itself to the use of the drum player as entertainment equipment.

The chairmen of the Columbia Phonograph Company considered it particularly important to concentrate on the recording of sound carriers and their subsequent sale, so that by 1891 the company had published a large catalog with a wide variety of recordings of waltzes, marches, polkas, national anthems and excerpts could call various operas his own. By 1893 the catalog, which was previously ten pages, grew to thirty-two pages, supplemented by chants, recitations and language courses. In the same year the decision is made to break away from the North American Phonograph Company and to go new ways from now on.

Remarks

  1. ↑ For a brief period from June 18 to July 14, 1888, the company's name was American Phonograph Company (American Phonograph Co.)
  2. ↑ With regard to the terms of the contract with the American Graphophone Company, Lippincott undertook to provide Graphophone for the purpose of leasing and sales for a period of fifteen years throughout the United States, with the exception of the states of Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia there Distribution rights for these areas had already been sold to a group of investors consisting of shareholders and employees of the American Graphophone Company under the leadership of Edward D. Easton, who founded the Columbia Phonograph Company in 1889. On the other hand, to obtain all devices from the American Graphophone Company, which would manufacture them alone. With regard to the purchase quantities, it was agreed to immediately provide three hundred dictation machines in a first step, which should be intended for preferential delivery to the Western Electric Company . According to this, the American Graphophone Co. would produce at least 5,000 Graphophone annually and would be available to Lippincott, who in turn would have been entitled to sell speaking machines of his own manufacture in the event of failure to comply with the supply agreement, with the obligation then to charge a license fee of 25 US dollars per unit American Graphophone Company. Furthermore, the American Graphophone Company agreed to support Lippincott in all legal disputes directed against him and his companies and to bear the court costs including any fines incurred, along with asserting any claims on his part against third parties on his behalf . In return, Lippincott agreed to contribute $ 200,000 to the American Graphophone Company's equity fund.
  3. ↑ Under the terms of the Edison Phonograph Company contract, Lippincott agrees to pay $ 500,000 to acquire the company and $ 113,000 to purchase the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company. Edison and his newly founded company Edison Phonograph Works were to own the sole manufacturing rights to the phonograph or Edison phonograph, which could only be designated as such and sold under these two names. Edison would receive a five percent license fee for each phonograph shipped over a fifteen year period, during which the North American Phonograph Company patents would be granted.

swell

literature

  • Herbert Jüttemann : Phonographen und Grammophone , 4th edition, Funk-Verlag Hein, Dessau 2007, ISBN 978-3-939197-17-1 .
  • Hoffmann, Frank W. & Ferstler, Howard: Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound, Routledge, London 2005, ISBN 978-0-415-93835-8 .
  • Peter Tschmuck: Creativity and Innovation in the Music Industry , 2nd edition, Springer, Heidelberg, New York, Dordrecht, London 2012, ISBN 978-3-642-28429-8 .
  • Walter L. Welch, Leah Brodbeck Stenzel Burt: From Tinfoil to Stereo - The Acoustic Years of the Recording Industry 1877-1929 , University Press of Florida Florida 1994, ISBN 0-8130-1317-8

Web links

Commons : North American Graphophone Company  - collection of images, videos, and audio files