Episode 1 of 2
Edison Announces the Phonograph
- When
- 1877-11-21
- Where
- Edison Laboratories
Edison announced his invention of the phonograph on November 21, 1877, a device for recording and replaying sound.
Edison conceived the principle of recording and reproducing sound between May and July 1877 as a byproduct of telegraph and telephone work. He announced the invention on November 21, 1877, with early reports appearing in Scientific American and newspapers in early November.
Sources
- Phonograph Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-04
- Menlo Park, New Jersey Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-11
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.