What Came First, The Record Player Or Records?

As Thomas Edison developed the phonograph, he replaced the paper with a metal cylinder covered in tin foil, according to the Library of Congress. He showed it off in the offices of Scientific American, and it received an excited review in the magazine on December 22, 1877. “Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came into this office, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was very well, and bid us a cordial good night,” the magazine said. He received a patent for the device on February 19, 1878.

To work the first phonograph, you would shout the message you wanted to be recorded into a piece on one side of the cylinder while turning the handle on the crank, according to the National Park Service. Inside the piece was a needle that would move based on the vibrations in your voice and carve grooves into the tin foil. Then a needle on the other side of the machine would play back your message. However, the tin foil would begin to tear after a few playbacks, so it wasn’t possible to preserve a recording for long. While the original phonograph sold well at first as a novelty item, enthusiasm soon dissipated because the device was hard to operate, and the foil recordings didn’t last.

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