How Our 1893 Class "M" Phonograph Came into Being, and the Historical Context It Inhabited

During the latter part of 1886, Ezra T. Gilliland, an engineer of Edison’s acquaintance, was engaged to develop new ideas for the Phonograph. Subsequently, in November 1887, Edison sent a wooden model of an electrically powered Phonograph to Gilliland’s workshop in Bloomfield, New Jersey. The new design represented a huge step forward. Gilliland constructed a working model of this machine, which featured a reproducer and a recorder held in an easily pivoted double carriage assembly (the so-called “Spectacle” attachment), and a removable cylinder record made of solid wax (actually a mixture of fats and waxes). This “New” Phonograph, which was described and illustrated in the December 31, 1887 issue of Scientific American, led Edison to order from Gilliland a small number of the redesigned Phonographs, mounted in portable wooden cabinets that enclosed and protected their electric motors. These became known as the Gilliland “Improved” Phonographs. This development led directly to Edison's marathon burst of technical experimentation that created the "Perfected" Phonograph, soon dubbed the Class "M"

A man named Jesse Lippincott, who had been made wealthy by his share in a glass factory, entered into an agreement with the American Graphophone Company on March 29, 1888. Lippincott, through his North American Phonograph Company, was to act as sole agent for the Graphophone. The Graphophone Company was getting ready to offer the public a talking machine for which the firm envisioned enormous demand. Although the Graphophone was intended strictly for office dictation, it was hoped that every business across the country would eventually need to lease one. Before making the machines available through North American’s web of territorial, or “local,” leasing outlets, the Graphophone Company planned to do one last little thing: swat that annoying Mr. Edison out of the way.

American Graphophone had a grudge against rival Edison because Edison had borrowed its method of recording without permission. Jesse Lippincott, however, stepped between the two smoldering combatants and managed to convince Edison to come onboard. Edison had recently exhibited his “Perfected” (or Class “M”) Phonograph, the third version of the electrically driven, wax cylinder machine. The inventor was prepared to begin manufacturing these instruments, and Lippincott got the contract to distribute them. Edison was anxious to conclude a deal that would get his Phonograph back into the limelight. The two opposing factions embarked upon their grand illusion of trying to occupy the same distributorship.

As soon as a good number of Phonographs and Graphophones were leased to offices around the country, the swagger of the Graphophone Company began to soften. Reports from the field were not what the company wanted to hear. Edison’s Phonograph was a better-designed, easier to use machine. The awkward foot-treadle of the Graphophone and its unsatisfactory single-use cylinders had quickly branded the machine a failure. The North American Phonograph Company began slowly, ever so slowly, to collapse.

The demise took five years, during which Jesse Lippincott, a man who gave new meaning to the concept of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, lost his health, his fortune and finally his life. The Graphophone Company, whose contract had been made with Lippincott personally, was frozen out of the leaderless North American Phonograph Company. The ill-conceived policy of leasing was abandoned, and North American, eventually in receivership, devolved into an exclusive sales agency for the Edison Phonograph. At the end of 1894, Edison would finally force the dissolution of North American, in order to get control of his Phonograph business. The Graphophone Company endured the long winter of its discontent, but managed to stay afloat until it could return a favor, and borrow a few of Mr. Edison’s improvements. The next twenty years would be periodically punctuated by pitched battles between the Phonograph and Graphophone interests, despite cross-licensing agreements. The opening bell for what was to be a lengthy contest had rung.

Text Copyright Timothy C. Fabrizio and George F. Paul, from "Discovering Antique Phonographs," no rights for copying or any other use granted.