Emile Berliner (
May 20,
1851 –
August 3,
1929) was a
German-born
American inventor, best known for developing the
disc record gramophone (
phonograph in
American English). He founded The
Berliner Gramophone Company in 1895, The
Gramophone Company in
London, England, in 1897,
Deutsche Grammophon in
Hanover,
Germany, in 1898 and
Berliner Gram-o-phone Company of Canada in
Montreal in 1899 (chartered in 1904).
Life and work
Born in
Hanover,
Germany, Emile Berliner immigrated to the
United States of America in 1870, where he established himself in
Washington, D.C. After some time working in a livery stable, he became interested in the new
audio technology of the
telephone and
phonograph, and invented an improved telephone transmitter (one of the first type of
microphones) which was acquired by the
Bell Telephone Company. Berliner subsequently moved to
Boston in 1877 and worked for Bell Telephone until 1883, when he returned to Washington and established himself as a private researcher.
Emile Berliner became a United States citizen in 1881.
Record made in 1908 in Hanover, Germany by Emile Berliner's Gramophone Company (later
Deutsche Grammophon)
In 1886 Berliner began experimenting with methods of
sound recording. He was granted his first
patent for what he called the
"gramophone" in 1887. The first gramophones recorded sound using horizontal
modulation on a
cylinder coated with a low resistance material such as
lamp black, subsequently fixed with
varnish and then copied by
photoengraving on a metal playback cylinder. This was similar to the method employed by
Edison's machines. In 1888 Berliner invented a simpler way to record sound by using
discs. Within a few years he was successfully marketing his technology to
toy companies. However, he hoped to develop his device as more than a mere toy, and in 1895 persuaded a group of businessmen to put up $25,000 with which he created the
Berliner Gramophone Company.
A problem with early gramophones was getting the turntable to rotate at a steady speed during playback of a disc. Engineer
Eldridge R. Johnson helped solve this problem by designing a clock-work spring-wound motor. In 1901 Berliner and Johnson teamed up to found the
Victor Talking Machine Company.
Berliner's other inventions include a new type of
loom for mass-production of cloth; an acoustic tile; and an early version of the
helicopter. According to a July 1, 1909, report in
The New York Times, a helicopter built by Berliner and J. Newton Williams of
Derby, Connecticut, had lifted its operator (Williams) "from the ground on three occasions" at Berliner's laboratory in the
Brightwood neighborhood of Washington, D.C. On
July 16,
1922, Berliner and his son,
Henry, demonstrated a working helicopter for the
United States Army.
Berliner was also active in advocating improvements in public health and
sanitation.
Emile Berliner died of a
heart attack at the age of 78 and is buried in
Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C., alongside his wife and a son.
Publications
Books
Emile Berliner with an unidentified woman.
- Conclusions, 1902, Kaufman Publishing Co.
- The Milk Question and Mortality Among Children Here and in Germany: An Observation, 1904, The Society for Prevention of Sickness
- Some Neglected Essentials in the Fight against Consumption, 1907, The Society for Prevention of Sickness
- A Study Towards the Solution of Industrial Problems in the New Zionist Commonwealth, 1919, N. Peters
- Muddy Jim and other rhymes: 12 illustrated health jingles for children, 1919, Jim Publication Company.
Patents
Marker for the Berliner family in Washington, DC.
- Telephone (induction coils), filed October 1877, issued January 1878
- Telephone (carbon diaphragm microphone), filed August 1879, issued December 1879
- Microphone (loose carbon rod), filed September 1879, issued February 1880
- Microphone (spring carbon rod), filed Nov 1879, issued March 1880
- Gramophone (horizontal recording), original filed May 1887, refiled September 1887, issued November 8, 1887
- Process of Producing Records of Sound (recorded on a thin wax coating over metal or glass surface, subsequently chemically etched), filed March 1888, issued May 1888
- Combined Telegraph and Telephone (microphone), filed June 1877, issued November 1891
- Sound Record and Method of Making Same (duplicate copies of flat, zinc disks by electroplating), filed March 1893, issued October 1895
- Gramophone (recorded on underside of flat, transparent disk), filed November 7 1887, issued July 1896
