Thomas Edison and the Origins of Mass Entertainment
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Thomas Edison and the Origins of Mass
Entertainment
Central issue, problem, or question: What were the difficulties of bringing a
new invention to market? What was the impact of Thomas Edison’s phonograph
(precursor of today’s CD player/burner) on American society?
Significance: This lesson focuses on Thomas Edison’s attempts to market a
pivotal new invention, the phonograph, which along with the kinetoscope, gave
birth to the mass entertainment industry in the United States and around the
world. The lesson underscores the difficulty of determining how a new
technology will be used, for Edison and his associates initially believed that the
machines would be best suited to business applications.
New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards for Social Studies:
Standard 6.4 (United States and New Jersey History). High School: H-1
(Analyze and evaluate key events, people, and groups associated with
industrialization and its impact); H-2 (Analyze the development of
industrialization in America and New Jersey).
Objectives: After learning about Thomas Edison and his phonograph and
analyzing primary source documents, students will be able to:
• Describe how the phonograph worked.
• Explain the difficulties of marketing a new technology.
• Explain how the phonograph evolved from a business machine to a
nickel-in-the-slot amusement to a source of home entertainment.
• Evaluate the impact of this new technology on daily life in the United
States.
Abstract: Middle school students will learn how Thomas Edison sought to
market the phonograph and develop mock ad campaigns for the new device.
High school students will learn about the phonograph’s development as an
entertainment, rather than as a business, device and write a reflective paragraph
on how the invention of recorded sound changed daily life in the United States.
Duration: Two 45-minute class periods.
1Sources
Secondary Sources
Paul Israel online lecture: Thomas Edison and Inventing Mass
Entertainment,” July 2005; available in the “Mass Entertainment” section
of the New Jersey History Partnership Project website, http://nj-history.org.
Paul Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention (New York, 2000).
David Nasaw, Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (New
York, 1993).
Theresa M. Collins and Lisa Gitelman, Thomas Edison and Modern
America: A Brief History with Documents (Boston, 2002)
The Thomas A. Edison Papers website, http://edison.rutgers.edu/
Library of Congress, “Inventing Entertainment: The Motion Pictures and
Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies,”
http://rs6.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edhome.html
Edison National Historic Site website, http://www.nps.gov/edis/home.htm.
Primary Sources
Thomas Edison’s List of Potential Applications for the Phonograph, 1878.
http://nj-history.org/proRef/massEnt/pdf/massEntDoc1.pdf
Description of a Public Demonstration of a Phonograph, New York Times,
24 March 1878.
http://nj-history.org/proRef/massEnt/pdf/massEntDoc2.pdf
Photograph of Thomas Edison and His Phonograph by Matthew Brady,
1878.
http://nj-history.org/proRef/massEnt/pdf/massEntDoc3.pdf
Thomas Edison, “The Perfected Phonograph,” The North American
Review, June 1888.
http://nj-history.org/proRef/massEnt/pdf/massEntDoc4.pdf
Photograph of Nickel-in-the-Slot Phonograph Parlor, ca. 1891.
http://nj-history.org/proRef/massEnt/pdf/massEntDoc5.pdf
2“Songs for a Nickel,” New York Journal, 9 November 1890.
http://nj-history.org/proRef/massEnt/pdf/massEntDoc6.pdf
Materials: Teachers will need copies of the primary source documents listed
above.
Background: Thomas Alva Edison, along with his large staff of technicians and
mechanics, invented and developed many of the key technologies of modern
life—including electrical lighting, motion picture technology, and recorded sound.
Recently he topped Life Magazine’s list of the hundred most important people of
the millennium, ahead of Albert Einstein, Martin Luther, Sir Isaac Newton,
Mahatma Gandhi, etc.
At the age of 21 in 1869, Edison resigned his position as a telegraph operator
and technician to devote himself to a life of invention. Soon after, he moved to
New Jersey and established his first workshop in Newark. By 1878, after public
demonstration of his phonograph, Edison became world famous as the “Wizard
of Menlo Park” (where he had moved in 1875).
The phonograph was a device for recording and reproducing sound, which grew
out of Edison’s earlier work on the telegraph and telephone. In 1878, the
machine was a fascinating novelty, and Edison and his associates were not sure
how to bring it to market. Edison predicted many possible applications for the
phonograph as an educational device, as a toy, as a business machine, and as a
source of family amusement, but he and his associates assumed that it would be
used primarily by businessmen both as a dictation machine and as a way to
record telephone conversations.
These new applications, however, did not develop quickly. Between 1878 and
1887, much of Edison’s time was consumed by his electrical power and lighting
system. It was not until 1888 that Edison publicly announced the development of
his “perfected phonograph,” a battery-powered machine that recorded speech
and music on reusable wax cylinders. That year Edison also began
experimenting with a device he called the “kinetoscope,” which would “do for the
Eye what the phonograph does for the Ear,” by recording and reproducing
objects in motion on film.
Edison and his associates’ expectations about marketing the phonograph to
businessmen were overly optimistic. In the 1890s, most potential buyers thought
the device was too complicated for use as a business instrument. Edison’s foray
into the toy industry was, likewise, dismal; his talking doll, which could recite
verses like “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” was a major failure of the 1890 Christmas
season due to technical difficulties. But while the phonograph failed to take hold
as a toy or business machine, it proved extremely profitable as a nickel-in-the-
slot public amusement in saloons, hotels, state and county fairs, railroad and
3ferry waiting rooms, etc. This application of the phonograph gave rise to a
recorded music industry and would ultimately create a market for phonographs in
the home.
Although Edison initially monopolized the recorded sound industry, he soon
faced competition from the Columbia Phonograph Company and the Victor
Talking Machine Company (later RCA) of Camden, New Jersey. Victor soon led
the phonograph industry by recording music on longer playing discs, rather than
cylinders, and by signing exclusive recording contracts with celebrities like opera
star Enrico Caruso. Bowing to market pressure, Edison began manufacturing
disc recordings, even though he believed his cylinders produced a superior
sound.
Key Words:
Phonograph
Kinetoscope
Mass Entertainment
Patent
Wax Cylinder Recordings
Disc Recordings
Middle School Procedures
The teacher should begin this lesson with a short lecture (based on Paul Israel’s
online lecture, available in the “Mass Entertainment” section of the New Jersey
History Partnership Project website, http://nj-history.org) on Thomas Edison and
his inventions.
Afterwards, the teacher should ask students to imagine that it is 1878 (a time
before tape recorders, iPods, and record and CD players); Thomas Edison has
just invented a new device to record and reproduce words and music—the
phonograph. How would you market this machine to consumers? Who is your
target audience? The teacher should divide the class into four cooperative
groups; each group will brainstorm a list of ways this new machine might be
marketed to potential consumers. One group will think of ways to market the
phonograph as a toy for children. Another group will come up with a list of ways
the phonograph might be used as a business machine (like Christopher Latham
Sholes’ typewriter, introduced in 1873). A third group will develop a list of
household uses for the phonograph. The fourth group for will focus on
educational or scholarly applications for the new machine. The teacher should
remind students that Edison and his business associates had many ideas about
how the new technology might be used but did not know which applications
would be most successful. When the groups have completed their work, the
teacher should select a representative to present each group’s list to the class
and develop a class list on the chalk board.
4Afterwards, the teacher should hand out a list of potential uses for the
phonograph written by Edison himself:
• Thomas Edison’s List of Potential Applications for the Phonograph.
http://nj-history.org/proRef/massEnt/pdf/massEntDoc1.pdf
The teacher should read and discuss the document with the students, defining
any unfamiliar words. The teacher should ask the students to compare and
contrast the class list with Edison’s list:
• How does Edison’s list differ from the class list?
• Do any of Edison’s proposed applications surprise you? Why?
• Why do you think the two lists differ?
• How are the two lists similar?
For homework each student will develop a mock ad campaign (on paper or on a
computer) for one of the applications of the phonograph on Edison’s list; the ad
should be targeted to a nineteenth-century consumer, in other words, someone
for whom recorded sound is still a novelty. At the beginning of class on the
following day, the teacher should invite students to present their ads to the class.
An alternative assignment might ask students to write a short essay on the
difficulty of determining how a new technology like the phonograph or the internet
will be used by consumers.
High School Procedures
The teacher should begin this lesson with a short lecture (based on Paul Israel’s
online lecture, available in the “Mass Entertainment” section of the New Jersey
History Partnership Project website, http://nj-history.org) on Thomas Edison and
his inventions, especially the phonograph.
To give students a sense of the novelty of recorded sound in 1878, the teacher
should then hand out:
• Description of a Public Demonstration of a Phonograph.
http://nj-history.org/proRef/massEnt/pdf/massEntDoc2.pdf
• Photograph of Thomas Edison and His Phonograph by Matthew Brady.
http://nj-history.org/proRef/massEnt/pdf/massEntDoc3.pdf
After students have read the document and examined the photograph, the
teacher should ask them to describe how the audience reacted to the new
device. The teacher should explain that when Edison invented the phonograph,
he was not sure how it would be used. There were no similar machines at the
time, and the device Dr. Arnold exhibited was too complicated for regular
consumer use. However, Edison promised that a perfected version of the
machine would soon be available, and he anticipated that it would have many
applications. Ten years later (spent primarily developing his power and lighting
system), the perfected machine was finally available. The teacher should hand
5out Edison’s North American Review article announcing the new development.
http://nj-history.org/proRef/massEnt/pdf/massEntDoc4.pdf
For homework, students should read the article and fill out the attached
worksheet.
http://nj-history.org/proRef/massEnt/pdf/massEntWS.pdf
The teacher should begin the class with a discussion of Edison’s article on the
“perfected phonograph.” The teacher should explain that Edison’s prediction that
the phonograph would be used primarily as a business machine turned out to be
wrong. The machines were complicated; businessmen found it easier to dictate
to a stenographer than to a phonograph, and clerks were understandably
reluctant to use a machine that might eventually replace them. Instead, the
phonograph found its niche as an entertainment device. To conclude this lesson,
the teacher should project or hand out copies of a photograph of a nickel-in-the-
slot phonograph parlor from the 1890s.
http://nj-history.org/proRef/massEnt/pdf/massEntDoc5.pdf
The teacher should give the students some time to look at the image before
asking:
• When was this picture taken?
• Where was it taken?
• What are these people doing?
To help answer the final question, the teacher should hand out “Songs for a
Nickel.”
http://nj-history.org/proRef/massEnt/pdf/massEntDoc6.pdf
After reading the document, students should re-examine the photograph and
describe what they now see. Afterwards, the teacher should tell students that by
the first decade of the twentieth century, the phonograph had become less a
public amusement than a source of home entertainment.
The teacher should conclude this lesson by asking students to write a reflective
paragraph on how the invention of recorded sound changed daily life in the
United States.
Connections: This lesson might be part of a larger lesson on Thomas
Edison and his inventions or on the impact of technology on American history.
Comments and Suggestions: Teachers might wish to take their students on
a fieldtrip to the Edison National Historic Site in West Orange.
Instructional Technology: Teachers might assign students to explore online
materials available through the Thomas A. Edison Papers website,
http://edison.rutgers.edu/, the Library of Congress exhibit on “Inventing
Entertainment,” http://rs6.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edhome.html, and the
Edison National Historic Site website, http://www.nps.gov/edis/home.htm.
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