Key Components and Antecedents to the Jukebox

Key Components

Key Component One: Recordable & Playable Sound: Edison’s Phonograph and Bell & Tainter’s Graphophone

In 1877, Thomas Alva Edison discovered how to record human speech. One year later, Edison would sell this discovery for $10,000 plus 20% royalties, creating the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company. This device was intended not for entertainment but rather, to be a “business communications device.” The device could not produce music. [1]

Eight years later, in 1885, two men – Chichester A. Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter would apply for patents on the Graphophone – an improved speaking apparatus that played sound by floating a stylus over a wax cylinder. [2]

Patent wars would ensue between the two technologies, with the two devices waxing and waning in popularity throughout the late nineteenth-century due to the difficulty in maintaining both devices. Both companies operated using a rental model, in which businesses would rent the machine in exchange for maintenance being provided by the company. Interestingly, this rental model would be used mimicked in the future – as seen in the case of early computer companies such as IBM. [3]

Nevertheless, due to the difficulty in maintaining such devices, the primary target demographic of the phonograph and graphophone – businessmen – would soon lose interest. By the 1880s and 1890s, the phonograph would shift closer into the entertainment industry, and could be found most readily in the hands of showmen.

Key Component Two: Coin-In-Slot Technology

The first “vending machine” dates back to Ancient Egypt. Originally the product of Hero, a Greek inventor in 215 BC, the Egyptians used coin operated machines that dispensed holy water in temples. Worshipers would need holy water to bathe in before they could enter the temple. [4] A diagram of this operation is shown in the image below.

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Eventually, “coin-in-slot” technology would be added to the phonograph in 1893 by Louis Glass, the general manager of the Pacific Phonograph Company. Glass, like Edison, Bell, and Tainter, was also losing revenue on his model. Seeking alternate ways to boost revenue, Glass decided to add pre-existing coin-in-slot technology to a phonograph, thus preparing the device to be used for entertainment. [5] You can see this technology in Louis Glass’s May 27, 1890 patent below.

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Key Component Three: Multiple Record Selection

The third and final piece of technology that would be crucial in leading to the jukebox was the multiphone, a device that allowed for multiple songs to be played on one phonograph. Between 1905 and 1907, The Multiphone Company of New York developed Ferris wheel-like conveyor belt that would hold up to 24 selections of records. While the Multiphone Company went bankrupt in 1908 due to poor business practices, their record-selection technology would lay the necessary foundation to create the jukebox. [6]

Music-Playing Antecedents

Aside from the key components used to make the jukebox that were present in the phonograph and graphophone, as a music-playing device, the true antecedents to the jukebox were music boxes and player pianos – a cheap form of entertainment.

At the turn-of-the-century, automated music boxes were actually enjoying a “Renaissance” from the time in which they were first popular, during the actual Renaissance of the 16th-century. These devices included not only music boxes, but also mechanical animals, dolls, and other figurines. While these devices only enjoyed a brief resurgence and faded back into obscurity around 1907-1908, they are still important antecedents to the jukebox.[7]

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Pictured above is an example of a music box, specifically the Nicole Freres Grand Format Overture Piano-Forte Box. This specific music box is an example of a well sought-after model and was one of the ways that people enjoyed music and small tunes in the mid 19th-century. Similar to later jukeboxes, this music box is set in a well-adorned, ornate wooden box. [8]

Selection/Rejection: Early Intentions

1877: Edison’s Tinfoil Phonograph – A Tool for Business?

In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the “tinfoil phonograph,” a “scientific marvel” that was part of Edison’s greater goal of reproducing human sound. It is important to note that this phonograph was to be used for business, not entertainment.

While the phonograph ultimately did not take off as a tool for business because it lost in the “selection” process to the telephone, Edison and his team made important scientific contributions to the development of what would become the jukebox. [9]

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Why didn’t the Phonograph or Graphophone Become Popular Business Tools?

The question of “selection and rejection” with regards to the phonograph and graphophone is not a question of selecting a better music-playing device, but rather, a question of how an artifact’s popularity increased as its advertised purpose and popular use changed. While these devices were capable of playing music, they were not the only music-playing devices at the time, as player pianos were also popular.

The Birth of the Jukebox

The “birth” of the jukebox as a music-playing device is similar in many ways to the story of Play-Doh, which was initially intended to be used for cleaning wallpaper at the time of its 1955 invention before becoming a popular children’s toy. [10]

To learn about the birth of the jukebox as we know it today, click here.

Key Takeaways:

Parallel Development

The birth of the jukebox is part of a rocky, lengthy process that spanned multiple decades in the beginning of the 20th-century. Nevertheless, its first components can be simply traced to the use and modification of new and existing technologies by multiple parallel inventors.

The combination of new inventions and improvements coming from seasoned music companies alongside the invention of music-playing technologies allowed for an experimental industry that paved the way for the jukebox as we know it today.

Notes

[1] Kerry Segrave, Jukeboxes: An American Social History (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland,2002), 3.

[2] Segrave. 4.

[3] “1953. Timeline of Computer History” (Computer History Museum) Accessed October 16, 2019. https://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/1953/

[4]R. Rajkumar, “Ancient Coin-Operated Holy Water Dispensing Machine” ( Elixir of Knowledge, June 06, 2014) Accessed October 16, 2019. https://www.elixirofknowledge.com/2014/06/ancient-coin-operated-holy-water.html

[5] Segrave. 5.

[6] Ibid. 11

[7] Ibid. 14.

[8] “Nicole Freres Grand Format Overture Music Box” 4A Overture Boxes. (Musical Treasures of Miami) Accessed October 29, 2019. http://musicaltreasuresofmiami.com/4a-overture-boxes.html

[9] “Tinfoil Phonograph” Thomas A. Edison Papers. (Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences. October 28, 2016.) Accessed October 29, 2019. http://edison.rutgers.edu/tinfoil.htm

[10] Tracy V. Wilson, “How Play-Doh Works” (HowStuffWorks, July 19, 2000) Accessed October 16, 2019. https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/play-doh.htm