Emile Berliner – Inventor (May 20, 1851 – August 3, 1929)
This morning as I read through events that happened on this day (March 4) the one that peaked my interest was, that in 1877 Emile Berliner invented the microphone. That seemed like something I had to find out more about and what I did was pretty interesting!
Emile Berliner was born in the Kingdom of Hanover, Germany on May 20, 1851. He migrated to the United States in 1870 to avoid being drafted for the Franco-Prussian War. His first home was Washington D,C. where he lived with a friend of his father’s who had come with Emile. Emile lived and worked in the friends shop. Through the magic of Ancestry.com I discovered that Emile left Hamburg on April 27,1870.and arrived in New York on May 11, 1870. (not that it matters but it’s interesting).He eventually moved to New York he worked various jobs and studied physics at night at the Cooper Union Institute.
Berliner with an experimental disc and Gramophone he exhibited in 1888
While it was the invention of the microphone that led me to Emile Berliner, that is not the invention he is best known for! He is 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).
.Like many inventors Berliner worked on a variety of projects among his other inventions wer the first radial aircraft engine (1908), a new type of loom for mass-production of cloth; a helicopter (1919), and acoustical tiles (1920s). All in a day’s work! LOL!
But back to Emile Berliner and the microphone…. from Wikipedia.. Berliner 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). The patent was acquired by the Bell Telephone Company, see The Telephone Cases. But on February 27, 1901 the United States Court of Appeal declared the patent void. 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.
Here is a list of the Patents granted to Emile Berliner…..
U.S. Patent 199,141 Telephone (induction coils), filed October 1877, issued January 1878
U.S. Patent 222,652 Telephone (carbon diaphragm microphone), filed August 1879, issued December 1879
U.S. Patent 224,573 Microphone (loose carbon rod), filed September 1879, issued February 1880
U.S. Patent 225,790 Microphone (spring carbon rod), filed Nov 1879, issued March 1880
UK Patent 15232 filed November 8, 1887
U.S. Patent 372,786 Gramophone (horizontal recording), original filed May 1887, refiled September 1887, issued November 8, 1887
U.S. Patent 382,790 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
U.S. Patent 463,569 Combined Telegraph and Telephone (microphone), filed June 1877, issued November 1891
U.S. Patent 548,623 Sound Record and Method of Making Same (duplicate copies of flat, zinc disks by electroplating), filed March 1893, issued October 1895
U.S. Patent 564,586 Gramophone (recorded on underside of flat, transparent disk), filed November 7, 1887, issued July 1896
It appears that the first one must be the one that is referenced in the list that started this post, but it’s only the first of what appears to be a total of five patents for microphones!!!
Berliner’s work on helicopters is also interesting not only did his helicopter achieve lift off from the ground on three occasions at his laboratory in 1909, but his experiments with the use of a vertically mounted tail rotor to counteract torque on his single main rotor design, led to the mechanical development of practical helicopters of the 1940s!!
So all in all it appears that we have a lot to thank Emile Berliner for!!
