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Edison Tin Foil Phonograph
From the collection of National Museum of American History. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the first device to ever record and play back sound. Speaking into a mouthpiece caused a metal stylus attached to a diaphragm to move up and down. The stylus made indentations on a sheet of tinfoil wrapped around a rotating drum. During playback, the stylus traced those indentations. That caused the diaphragm to vibrate, making sound waves that recreated the original sound. Other experimenters had recorded sound visually before this, but Edison’s machine could also reproduce the recorded sound.
National Museum of American History’s own descriptionCredit lineEdison Tin Foil Phonograph. 1878. National Museum of American History, Gift of the International Business Machines Corporation. CC0.
