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Emile Berliner

Music Record

• Emile Berliner invented the microphone that became part of the first Bell telephones, and his gramophone was the first record player to use disks.
• Gramophone; Combined Telegraph and Telephone Patent Nos. 372,786; 463,569.
• He was a famous inventor, born in Hanover, Germany, Berliner came to Washington in 1870 at age 19.
• He studied physics part time at the Cooper Institute (now Cooper Union) while assisting in a chemical laboratory. Berliner's inspiration came when a telegraph operator told him that more current passed as one pressed harder on the key.
• The 25 year-old Berliner sold his microphone patent for $50,000 to the fledgling Bell Telephone Company paving the way for it to become one of the world's largest corporations. The disk permitted inexpensive, mass duplication.
• Berliner's gramophone and method for duplicating records were eventually acquired by the Victor Talking Machine Company (eventually RCA).