My strongest vice is my record collection. I love buying special editions of my favorite albums, well-loved used copies from thrift stores, weird little one-off singles—much to the detriment of my wallet. Before the rise of vinyl records as we’re familiar with them today, though, there was Thomas Edison and his phonographs.
By 1877, Edison was working on a device that would help him transmit messages over his newly-invented telegraph, using grooves in paper to record and repeat the morse code message. In doing so, he posited he would be able to record the vibration of human voices, as well.
Stenciled paper became a cylinder made of tin, and a needle and diaphragm were used to record Edison reciting “Mary had a Little Lamb,” the first phonograph record.
Over time he perfected his methods, and eventually the tin cylinders made way for another one of his inventions: The Amberol Cylinder, released in 1908 and to be used with Edison’s patented Amberola Phonograph. These cylinders, made of a special wax-like substance called Amberol, could play one song of two minutes—and later four minutes—in length.
Last year, we were given an Edison Amberola 30 phonograph from around 1912 and a large collection of about 50 wax cylinders with songs ranging from familiar to brand new (to us, anyway!) to go along with it.
The unit needed some major cleaning and oiling, but thanks to guides posted online by phonograph enthusiasts, and after several hours of hard work, I was able to get it up and running again! A handful of our cylinders are still playable and in excellent condition.
You can see a video of the phonograph in action on our YouTube channel below!
~Grace Duxbury, Collections Manager
This article first appeared in the Morrison County Historical Society newsletter, Volume 38, Number 2, 2025