But a combination of the reviving economy and more reliable spring-motors installed in phonographs by 1895 helped to get the whole industry going again. As employment rose and prices of phonographs fell below $40 (considered a “magic number” at the time, much as DVD players first took off after dropping below $400), these devices started becoming a popular consumer item– despite protests from those who ran coin-operated phonographs (who feared that people would stop using them. They didn’t, as shown by the continued presence of jukeboxes in at least some establishments over 100 years later.)
Inventors took interest in sound reproduction again as phonographs surged in popularity through the late 1890s. A patent was registered for a stereo record in 1898 (though none were ever manufactured or sold at the time.) Another scientist patented a method for sputtering flecks of metal in microscopically precise patterns onto non-conductive (i.e. non-metallic) surfaces back in 1884. This technique wasn’t really used for anything until well into the next century, when it served as the basis for the manufacturing of compact discs.
A variety of quite strange items appeared at the turn of the century. These included novelty records pressed on very hard chocolate, which wore out rather quickly, but the idea was that once they did, you could eat them. Novelty phonographs include the Lampograph– a phonograph which doubled as a lamp– and another phonograph which came with a mouthpiece you’d attach to your teeth, enabling you to hear the music playing in your head!

THE INDUSTRY TAKES OFF

The first decade of the 1900s was dominated by “the Big Three” major labels— Colombia, Victor and Edison. Edison produced only cylinders, stubbornly believing they would eventually be the only format around, all while aggressively suing any other company which made cylinders without giving him a cut. (He would have had a much better chance of seeing cylinders become the main format if he allowed other companies to make them, but that wasn’t his style.) His cylinder boxes were telling of the importance given to musicians and performers at the time: Edison’s frowning face appeared in a large black and white photo on one side, with a long, long list of patents and warnings against potential imitators of the cylinder on the other. Finally, along the edge of one side of the cylinder, in very small type, there was the name of the song and performer or band.
For a long time, cylinders had better sound quality than discs, partly because their grooves went up and down instead of side-to-side (as on flat records). But cylinders were hard to store. They came in cardboard cans which were given to rolling off of tables or shelves and shattering the cylinder inside. The cans also gave rise the term “canned music.” Flat records, on the other hand, easily fit most bookshelves, and made steady progress in sound quality and durability so that by around 1910 they sounded as good as cylinders.
Edison finally started making discs in 1913, though he stuck to the up-down groove, so that people had to buy special record players that only Edison made. (By 1929, the Edison company gave up on the record business entirely.)
By sticking to cylinders, Edison missed out on the first big boom in the sales of record players and records. Between 1901 and 1920, record players became a part of most households, whether rich, middle-class or poor. Some models sold for very cheap even for the time, while other phonographs were deluxe models for the rich only, made of fancy milled hardwood and gold or brass parts. By the first years of the century, most phonographs (or gramophones, or graphophones, depending on the brand involved) no longer had those big external horns that most people at the time found unsightly (today, these are the most valuable phonographs.) Instead, the horn was curled under the turntable, a design pioneered by Victor in their Victrola.
Records became a big business in the first decade of the century. Overall sales went from about 4 million in 1900 to almost 30 million in 1910. They kept going up right through World War I, when patriotic songs of all kinds were big sellers (the most famous being It’s A Long Way To Tipperary). The portable phonograph was invented during the war, so that the troops could enjoy music on the front lines. After the war, portables were big sellers in spring and summer, marketed for use on picnics and vacations. Some portables were as small as a pack of cigarettes (these came with fold-out cardboard horns.)

A Victrola portable player from the 1920s, note the heavy steel needle. The diaphragm whose vibration is amplified by the steel horn is made of mica, a very thin slice of layered rock. Later diaphragms were more cone-shaped and made of aluminum.

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