Emile Berliner
Pioneering inventor of the lateral-cut flat disc record and gramophone.
Chronology: 1851-05-20 – 1929-08-03
Origins & Early Life
Emile Berliner (born Emil Berliner; May 20, 1851 – August 3, 1929) was a German-American inventor and businessman who invented the lateral-cut flat disc record, also known as a "gramophone record," used with a gramophone. He founded the United States Gramophone Company in 1894. == Early life == Berliner was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1851 into a Jewish merchant family. He completed an apprenticeship to become a merchant, as was family tradition.
Pivotal Works & Achievements
While his real hobby was invention, he worked as an accountant to make ends meet. To avoid being drafted in the Franco-Prussian War, Berliner migrated to the United States of America in 1870 with a friend of his father's, in whose shop he worked in Washington, D.C. He moved to New York and, living off temporary work such as a paper route and cleaning bottles, he studied physics at night at the Cooper Union Institute. == Career == After some time working in a livery stable, Berliner became interested in the new audio technology of the telephone and phonograph. He invented an improved telephone transmitter, one of the first types of microphones.
Enduring Legacy & Impact
The patent was acquired by the Bell Telephone Company (see The Telephone Cases), but contested, in...
Source: Wikipedia