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Thomas Edison and the Origins of Mass Entertainment

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Thomas Edison and the Origins of Mass Entertainment 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. 1 Sources 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 3 ferry 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. 4 Afterwards, 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.
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