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January 29th, 1896 - After several legal battles with the North American Phonograph Company (one of the earliest documented companies that would try to commercialize the recorded music market- usually through arcade/nickelodeon parlors), Thomas Edison would buy and transfer many phonograph patents and mechanical supplies owned by North American to his newly formed National Phonograph Company- through said company, the brand 'Edison' would become trademarked. Following this transfer, Edison would have certain legal battles with Alexander Graham Bell's American Graphophone (which would soon be renamed to the modern Columbia) Company over ownership of the fizzling North American patents throughout the rest of 1896. However, by the end of the year, both the National Phonograph (Edison) and American Graphophone (Columbia) Companies agreed to the cross-licensing of patents both parties obtained. Through this agreement, the business, and proper competition, of commercially selling phonographs and records began on a wide scale [1] [2] [14].
1895/6 to ~1901/2 - Brown wax cylinders become one of the first widely commercialized records sold/played by the National Phonograph Company (which will hereafter be shortened to 'Edison'). These brown wax cylinder records would become packaged and stored in small cases that were enveloped with a roll of cotton around the inside of the case. These brown wax cylinders also came with small slips of paper that would identify the song of said record. With the manufacturing limitations, each cylinder would have to be recorded individually- but could be set up in a way that would allow up to a dozen cylinders be recorded at the same time. This would lead to situations where bands and singers would have to record the same song for dozens of times a day to keep up with the demand of said records. Due to the non-standardized materials of the wax records, many of these records would vary in sound quality. Eventually, Edison would standardize the 'wax' material, but the consistent issues with these cylinders would be in the form of mold damage, and brittleness- making archival and digitization efforts of these brown wax cylinders quite tough due to the fragile state these records find itself in over 100 years later. Many wax cylinders were also sold as 'blanks' where consumers could record their own songs, messages, or other recordings [3] [15].
1902 to 1912 - Edison moves on from brown wax cylinders to the 'Gold-Moulded' material. This 'gold-mould' material consisted of the brown wax cylinders that were coated in a metal mold which would have, as UC Santa Barbara puts it, "trace levels of the [gold] that were applied as a conductive agent in creating the initial mold from the wax master." With this coating process, the ability to mass produce cylinder records advanced past the former individual recordings, with wax master records becoming utilized in this process. The standard time of these gold molded cylinders stood around the 2-minute mark- remaining consistent from the brown wax era. Even though many of the shortcomings mentioned for the brown wax cylinders were answered with this era of cylinders, the issues with mold damage and brittleness remained consistent. (Pictures taken from here until the disc records were taken by me of examples from my own personal record collection) The cap to the sleeve case shows a handwritten description that the song found within is 'Looking This Way,' sung by Florence Hinkle and Margaret Keyes in 1906 [4].
May 1903 - According to an advertisement from the Edison Phonograph Monthly, roughly 5,000 stores sold Edison Phonographs [18; page 46].
1908 to 1912 - To remain competitive with Columbia and the Victor Talking Machine Company, but not abandon the cylinder market, Edison introduced the wax 'Amberol' cylinder, which would use the aforementioned process of coating brown wax masters, but with an increased number of grooves that would allow for double the run time of records from 2 minutes to 4 minutes. This era of cylinders would be shortened by the switch to a stronger material that would enhance the sound quality and lessen the brittleness issue of the past cylinders. While the green sleeve case is the original type that contained the wax Amberol cylinders from 1908-1912, the cylinder in the picture is actually of the Indestructible Record Company's 'Home Sweet Home,' performed by the Viennese Instrumental Trio in 1919- it was simply what was in the sleeve case when I bought it at a flea market [5].
October 1st, 1908 - Per Edison Phonograph Monthly, 13,000 (assumed to be an estimate) dealers were explicitly mentioned to have existed by October of 1908. Also mentioned in the same news block, "the announcement made a month ago, that after October 1st, unless the time is extended by formal application in each case, Dealers who handle other makes of cylinder goods will not be permitted to sell Edison goods, needs no apology or defense. It has been widely discussed in the talking machine trade." E.P.M. continues, "It means that we are going to regulate the matter of creating new Dealers and thereby prevent new ones from being established in places already properly covered. It means that every Dealer who is pushing our line properly and is carrying an adequate stock of Edison goods will not be disturbed in his town." With these two significant announcements, unless formally accepted, many of the dealers who sold Edison cylinders would be locked in selling cylinders only under the Edison banner. The second announcement would also make sure that areas where there were prime opportunities to open up dealerships were focused on while also not clogging up cities where there were already high numbers of dealers in said areas (i.e., New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc.) [6; page 248].
December 1st, 1908 - The previously mentioned policy of focusing on areas where there are little-to-no Edison dealers is officially established. Areas where there are high densities of Edison dealers will become less focused on compared to the areas with significantly less dealers. [6; page 300].
1911 - The National Phonograph Co. is officially merged and incorporated into what would become known as Thomas A. Edison, Inc. [2].
1912 to 1929 - The aforementioned wax Amberol cylinders were dropped when the Amberol cylinders became manufactured with a blue (plastic) celluloid mold that would become resistant to small pressure that would normally cause the previous fragile cylinders to shatter. The main downside to these 'Blue Amberol' cylinders was that, over time, the cylinders would shrink, which would make it hard to play said cylinders in the modern day. These records also stayed consistent with the 4-minute run time that the wax Amberol introduced. These cylinders would be sold until the very end of the company's life through 1929. The one to the right is of 'Silver Bell,' which was performed by the American Standard Orchestra and released in 1913. Released around the same time were the Diamond Discs- Edison's attempt at capitalizing on the disc record market. The record would be made from a mix of wood-flour, a formaldehyde-polymer mixture, and a solvent that would be shaped into a heat-resistant disc, which would then be enveloped by a synthetic-polymer varnish. This varnish would add to the weight of the record, making it one of the heavier records of the era due to the quarter-inch thickness of the disc (pictured at the bottom). The stylus that would allow the record to be played was tipped with diamonds, thus making it a 'diamond disc.' These discs were also sold until the very end of the company's existence into 1929. The second image on the right shows one of the sleeves the Diamon Disc would come in, with the song in the picture being 'The Marseillaise,' sung by Thomas Chalmers on May 21st, 1917 (many Blue Amberol cylinders were dubbed from the Diamond Disc songs). And the two discs on the far right shows a 'normal' Diamond Disc ('Dreams of Galilee- Anthem,' sung by Elizabeth Spencer, Frederick J. Wheeler, and John Young, published on May 12th, 1915), and the 'red star' record indicating from Edison to retailers and dealers that those specific records were to be made in less quantities/to be stocked less than other records ('Happy & Go-Lucky in My Old Kentucky Home,' sung by Robert Denning on November 20th, 1923) [7] [8].
May 1912 - Per Talking Machine World, "he stated that the Edison [business] concern now has a total of 111 jobbers and 11,130 dealers located in all parts of the country. New York leads with 819 dealers; Illinois has 551 dealers and there are 452 retailers in Minnesota." From this assertion, one can assume that the peak number of Edison dealers (at one time) was that 13,000 in 1908, and the decrease in dealers could potentially be attributed to other sources of competition such as mail-order companies like Sears-Roebuck Co [9; pages 19-20].
Late 1915 - Per Library of Congress, "In late 1915, Edison began its famous Tone Tests, which featured artists alternating their live performance on a darkened stage with that on the disc in front of large audiences, challenging them to detect a difference. Reaction was positive to these tests and reinforced the Edison motto that the discs were "re-creations" of performances, not merely recordings of them." These Tone Tests would go on to become a large part of Edison advertising history, though the reception from both listeners and singers would soon become mixed (the picture is of opera singer Marie Rappold in 1920 conducting one of these Tone Tests) [8] [15].
June 1921 - Per Talking Machine World, "George E. Buss, Edison distributor of New Philadelphia, O[hio], is one of the 4,000 Edison dealers from the four corners of the globe whose picture appeared in the April number of the Ladies' Home Journal." Even though the quote considers dealers from around the world, for the number of dealers from 1912 to 1921 to drop by 36% reinforces the idea that retail and mail-order companies gained hold over the market of selling records rather than individual, smaller dealers [10; page 97].
1923 - Regarding his opinion on the public’s taste in music, they were, as Timothy Day quotes Edison in 1923, “very primitive in [the public’s] taste... [and that there might be a few who liked] the most advanced music.” Edison's idea of ‘advanced music' usually referred to the operatic and ballad styled songs that he personally liked- which was reflected in many of the releases his company sold once they entered the disc record market in the mid 1910’s, as well as the company's tight control on the pricing of their machines and records being sold to the public- providing that emphasis and example of how involved Edison himself wanted to be within the business. Leonard DeGraaf also mentions individual dealers' testimonies in response to Edison's focus on fidelity rather than renewing exclusive contracts and adding notable stars and singers to the Edison lineup in the same year, with the first dealer mentioning, “where do you expect to be in ten years without an artist of reputation[?]” With the second dealer mentioning, “no one listening to a dance record gives a darn whether a second clarinet is heard or not. If the public cared [for a perfect record] where every instrument is heard, the Victor [company] would have been out of business long ago.” These blunt responses to Edison's narrow focus on fidelity would start to turn some consumers, and some the dealers who sold the Edison brand products, away from the company [11; page 58] [12; page 6].
1924 to 1928 - As the Tone Tests were becoming less popular, the rest of the business was starting to go downhill for Edison with the advent of radios as a form of competition. Edison would try to expand the business into longer-playing records (that would last over 4 minutes), as well as into the radio market itself after buying out the Splitdorf-Bethleham Electrical Co. of Newark in 1928 when they would try to produce radio-phonograph combo machines, with a lukewarm reception to the point where they were able to gain a bit of footing regarding profits [8] [16].
October 21st, 1929 - Even though certain avenues of business were seeming promising, as the Library of Congress mentions, "orders were given to close the Edison disc business, with the company stating that it would focus on the manufacture of its radio-phonographs in the future." With the uncertainty of these risky business ventures, it could have been possible for Edison to view the future of the business to survive if they fully adapt to the growing popularity of the radio industry. However, with Black Tuesday and the Wall Street Crash occurring a little over a week later, Edison's plan for the business would be changed, partly, by economic issues that would be outside of their control [8].
November 1st, 1929 - 11 days later- after Black Tuesday and the Wall Street Crash, "Edison ordered an end of production [of discs, cylinders, and radio-phonographs] except for dictation records." As many companies fell into the same issue during this period, Edison was one of many that were not able to adapt in time to fully survive as a commercial record company into and past the Great Depression- unlike like that of its competitors like Victor (which would be bought out by RCA) and Columbia (which was brought under the CBS umbrella company). This would end the era of the Edison Record label and brand that was started over 30 years prior [13; page 703].
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