Who Invented the Phonograph?
Charles Cros, a Frenchman, drew up a plan for a phonograph in 1877, but never built his mechanism. At the same time, Thomas Edison had been working on a phonograph of his own and later that same year, patented the first of his many versions. When Edison had learned of Alexander Graham Bell’s new invention, the telephone, he had
Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, and made the announcement on November 21, 1877. He first demonstrated the device for the to the public on November 29, 1877. Early models of his device for playing recorded sound recorded onto a tinfoil sheet cylinder using an up-down motion of the stylus. Most people do not know but a French scientist named Charles Cros also came up with the idea of the phonograph and published a theory of it in April, 1877, a few months earlier than Edison, but did not make a working model. The device began to gain popularity and, in May of 1889, San Francisco opened the first “phonograph parlor” — this was a plaec where people could make a music selection, like a jukebox, that functioned using a phonograph. By 1900, almost all US cities had a parlor.
