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Phonos Foetor In
Modern Miracle
CAMDEN - With sales of phonograph
records heading for a peak of history-mak-
ing proportions by the end of 1941, and
with new highs in sight for next year that
will dwarf anything ever experienced in
the 43-year history of the industry, the
mighty coin-operated phonograph has come
into its own as a powerful influence in a
modern miracle.
A recent survey of the record industry,
as reported in a new magazine, estimates
that an unbelievably high percentage of
all records currently sold find their way
promptly into coin phonographs, and that
play on the instruments has doubled duro
ing the year. The importance of this re-
markable development is further under-
lined by Tommy Dorsey, who states flatly
that nickel-in-the-chute play means more to
a band now than does radio time.
From what sort of a start has this mod-
ern counterpart of Hamlet's ghost sprung?
What influences have worked to bring the
record business back from the morass of
public indifference and industrial bank-
ruptcy into the spotlight as one of the
miracles of modern industrial history? It's
a long story, and the way is marked with
the bleached bones of two other declines
in the popularity of the black disc.
Records seemed headed for oblivion once
in 1905 while still an unaccepted industry,
again in 1925, and finally in the lean years
of the depression when record sales
plunged to a mere fraction of the towering
figures they achieved in the boom twen-
ties. Reasons for this multiple decline and
resuscitation can easily be traced to factors
in the industry itself, a well as to outside,
but related, influences.
A Frenchman, Leon Scott, is credited
with the first conception of the phonograph,
or "Phonautograph" as he called his new
contraption. This was in 1855, but the idea
was either too hazy or too poorly pre-
sented to secure any financial backing, and
the scheme was abandoned.
In 1877 however, the more practical
Thomas A. Edison took up the idea and the
day dream assumed concrete form. Other
engineering pioneers became interested. In
1888 Emil Berliner conceived the idea of
pressing a number of records from a mas-
ter rather than spoiling the original disc
by playing it back as his predecessors had
done. Ten years later he' showed the device
to Eldridge Johnson of Camden, N. J., and
Johnson was fascinated. A new industry
was born.
It was prophetic that the first recording
made by the new partnership was entitled
"I Guess I'll Telegraph My Baby." Their
instrument was crude and their results
barely recognizable but Johnson and Ber-
liner were laying the foundation for the
RCA Victor organization.
The name "Victor" did not appear un-
til 1901 when Johnson was convinced they
had won "victory" over their problems.
The trade mark, the famous Victor dog,
was adopted about the ame time when
the Gramophone Co., Victor's British af-
filiate, bought the now world-famous paint-
ing by an ob cure commercial artist, Fran·
cis Barraud. The new company was ready
to go.
But the public failed to see it. No mat-
ter what Johnson did, the phonograph was
regarded generally as a toy. Buyers scru-
pulously avoided the machine and-what
was worse-reputable musicians refused to
record for it.
The break came in 1906 and was directly
due to two factors: The Victor Company's
heroic advertising efforts and the signing
of Enrico Caruso as a Victor artist. Sales
of some of the Caruso records still stand
untouched in record history while the Vic-
tor Company, convinced that it had a story
to tell, told it in practically every form of
advertising known. From 1906 to 1921 Vic-
tor was probably the most consistent user
of advertising space in the country, utiliz-
ing magazines, newspapers, billboard, car
cards, movie slides, direct mail. And its
soaring sales curves proved it was right.
But in 1921 radio came into the picture,
not only a new idea but a vast improve-
ment in sound reproduction. Beside it the
phonogra ph, which still used the old acous-
tic process of the early 1900's, looked pale
in contrast. By 1925 millions of talking
machines had been relegated to the attic
while the public wondered vaguely, if at
all, whether the things were still being
made.
The next year their doubts were dis-
pelled with a blast of advertising herald·
ing the Orthophonic Victrola, the tonal
equal of the finest radios of the day. It
brought with it the realization that radio
was not and never could be the musical
rival of the phonograph. The two instru-
ments occupied different fields.
It was also about this time that record-
ing itself underwent a tremendous trans-
formation. Discs had previously been re-
corded through an elongated horn which,
because of its ability to concentrate sound,
moved the needle over the disc in propor·
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