North American Phonograph Company
| North American Phonograph Company | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Founded | 1888 |
| Founder | Jesse Lippincott |
| Status | Dissolved in 1898 |
| Location | New York City, New York, United States |
The North American Phonograph Company was an early attempt to commercialize the maturing technologies of sound recording in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Though the company was largely unsuccessful in its goals due to legal, technical and financial problems, it set the stage for the modern recording industry in the mid 1890s.
Thomas Edison first successfully demonstrated sound recording and reproduction in late 1877 with the tinfoil phonograph. Though the invention caught the public's attention, its practical utility was limited due to low-fidelity and single-use nature. Edison sold the rights to the phonograph to the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company in 1878 and shifted his focus to the development of electric light.
Between 1880 and 1885, Alexander Graham Bell and his associates at the Volta Laboratory experimented with a variety of processes for improved sound recording. They eventually settled on a recording processed based on cutting wax cylinders. On January 6, 1886, the associates formed the Volta Graphophone company and were awarded a patent on their wax cylinder process. Later in the year, Edison resumed research on the phonograph. On March 28, 1887, the Volta associates established the American Graphophone Company for the manufacturing and sale of graphophones, and Edison organized the Edison Phonograph Company in the following year to protect his new research in sound.
In 1888, a Pennsylvania businessman named Jesse Lippincott sought to market the budding technologies for business dictation. He licensed the graphophone patents in March, and the phonograph in June. In July, Lippincott chartered the North American Phonograph Company in Jersey City, NJ. Edison founded the Edison Phonograph Works for phonograph manufacture, and American Graphophone opened a factory in Bridgeport Connecticut for graphophone manufacture. Based on the model of the Bell Telephone Company, North American would buy phonographs and graphophones and lease them to regional sub-companies, who would in turn rent the machines to local businesses for dictation.
Before Lippincott could establish these sub-companies, the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company, who held Edison's tinfoil phonograph patents, threatened legal action against North American, claiming rights to Edison's improvements to the phonograph until 1912. Lippincott settled with the company, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars that were intended for investment capital.
In early 1889, thirty regional sub-companies were formed, and licensed exclusive territorial rights from North American. To fund manufacture, Lippincott also needed to sell stock in the parent company, but investors were wary due to the news of the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company's protests.
...
Wikipedia