Emil Berliner
| Emile Berliner | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
May 20, 1851 Hanover, Kingdom of Hanover |
| Died |
August 3, 1929 (aged 78) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Resting place | Rock Creek Cemetery |
| Nationality | German, American |
| Occupation | Inventor |
| Known for | disc record, microphone |
| Spouse(s) | Cora Adler (1862–1942), m. 1881 |
| Children | 7 children including Henry Berliner, Oliver Berliner (1887–1894) |
| Parent(s) | Samuel and Sarah Fridman Berliner |
| Awards | Elliott Cresson Medal (1913) |
Emile Berliner (May 20, 1851 – August 3, 1929), originally Emil Berliner, was a German-born American inventor. He is best known for inventing the flat disc phonograph record (called a gramophone record in British English and originally also in American English) and the Gramophone. He founded the United States Gramophone Company in 1894, The Gramophone Company in London, England, in 1897, Deutsche Grammophon in Hanover, Germany, in 1898 and Berliner Gram-o-phone Company of Canada in Montreal in 1899 (chartered in 1904).
Berliner was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1851 into a Jewish merchant family. Though raised in a Jewish family, he later became an agnostic. He completed an apprenticeship to become a merchant, as was family tradition. While his real hobby was invention, he worked as an accountant to make ends meet. To avoid being drafted for the Franco-Prussian War, Berliner migrated to the United States of America in 1870 with a friend of his father's, in whose shop he worked in Washington, D.C. He moved to New York and, living off temporary work, such as doing the paper route and cleaning bottles, he studied physics at night at the Cooper Union Institute. After some time working in a livery stable, he became interested in the new audio technology of the telephone and phonograph, and invented an improved telephone transmitter (one of the first type of microphones). The patent was acquired by the Bell Telephone Company (see The Telephone Cases). In America, Thomas Edison and Berliner fought a long legal battle over the patent rights. But on February 27, 1901 the United States Court of Appeal declared the patent void and awarded Edison full rights to the invention, stating "Edison preceded Berliner in the transmission of speech...The use of carbon in a transmitter is, beyond controversy, the invention of Edison" and the Berliner patent was ruled invalid. Berliner subsequently moved to Boston in 1877 and worked for Bell Telephone until 1883, when he returned to Washington and established himself as a private researcher. Emile Berliner became a United States citizen in 1881. Berliner also invented what was probably the first radial aircraft engine (1908), a helicopter (1919), and acoustical tiles (1920s).
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