The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Company. In 1932, RCA became an independent company after the partners were required to divest their ownership as part of the settlement of a government antitrust suit.
His Master's Voice is a painting and trademark by Francis Barraud that depicts a dog named Nipper listening to a wind-up disc gramophone whilst tilting his head, created in 1899.
Nipper was a British dog. He is best known as the subject of the 1898 painting His Master's Voice, painted posthumously by his owner Francis Barraud.
RCA Records is an American record label. Since 2008, it has been owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation.
Berliner Gramophone – its discs identified with an etched-in "E. Berliner's Gramophone" as the logo – was the first disc record label in the world. Its records were played on Emile Berliner's invention, the Gramophone, which competed with the wax cylinder–playing phonographs that were more common in the 1890s and could record.
Columbia Graphophone Co. Ltd. was one of the earliest gramophone companies in the United Kingdom.
The Gramophone Company Limited was a British phonograph manufacturer and record label, founded in April 1898 by Emil Berliner. It was one of the earliest record labels.
The Edison Diamond Disc Record is a type of phonograph record marketed by Thomas A. Edison, Inc. on their Edison Record label from 1912 to 1929. They were named Diamond Discs because the matching Edison Disc Phonograph was fitted with a permanent conical diamond stylus for playing them. Diamond Discs were incompatible with lateral-groove disc record players, e.g. the Victor Victrola, the disposable steel needles of which would damage them while extracting hardly any sound. Uniquely, they are just under 1⁄4 in thick.
Angel Records was a record label founded by EMI in 1953. It specialised in classical music, but included an occasional operetta or Broadway score. and one Peter Sellers comedy disc. The famous Recording Angel trademark was used by the Gramophone Company, EMI and its affiliated companies from 1898. The label has been inactive since 2006, when it dissolved and reassigned its active artists and catalogue while retaining its recent catalogue to sister labels EMI Classics, Virgin Classics and Manhattan Records and its musical theatre artists and catalogue to another sister label, Capitol Records.
Eldridge Reeves Johnson was an American businessman and engineer who founded the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1901 and built it into the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. Victor was the corporate predecessor of RCA Records.
Francis James Barraud was an English painter. He is best known for his painting His Master's Voice, one of the most famous commercial logos in the world, having been adopted as a recording industry trademark used by various corporations including RCA Victor, EMI, HMV, JVC and Deutsche Grammophon. The image, which depicts a dog named Nipper, ear cocked as he listens to a wind-up disc gramophone helped popularize the nascent field of sound recording and brought Barraud worldwide fame. He subsequently established himself as an artist for corporate clients, spending the rest of his career producing dozens of copies of the painting which made his name.
RCA Victrola was a budget record label introduced by RCA Victor in the early 1960s to reissue classical recordings originally released on the RCA Victor "Red Seal" label. The name "Victrola" came from the early console phonographs first marketed by the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1906. Many of RCA Victrola's reissues included recordings from the historic RCA Victor "Living Stereo" series first released in 1958, using triple channel stereophonic tapes from as early as 1954.
Orlando R. Marsh was an electrical engineer raised in Wilmette, Illinois. In early 1920s Chicago, Illinois he pioneered electrical recording of phonograph discs with microphones when acoustic recording with horns was commonplace. His firm Marsh Laboratories, Inc., founded in 1922, at one time was located on the seventh floor of the Lyon & Healy Building near the corner of Wabash and Jackson in Chicago. The Marsh firm no longer exists but the building still stands and is part of DePaul University.(1)
The Victor Orthophonic Victrola, first demonstrated publicly in 1925, was the first consumer phonograph designed specifically to play electrically recorded phonograph records. The combination was recognized as a major step forward in sound reproduction.
Frances Elliott Clark (1860–1958) was an early music-appreciation advocate. As a teacher in twentieth century Ottumwa, Iowa, Clark spent ten minutes in each of her chorus rehearsals telling students about composers or helping them recognize the stylistic features of a work that made it possible to place it in its correct historical context. Shortly thereafter, the phonograph added new opportunities for students to listen to music. Clark, who by 1903 had moved to Milwaukee, told of her introduction to Edison's invention and of its potential. She realized the difference it could make to her students if they could hear professional recordings. Her principal agreed, and approved the purchase of a machine for the schools.
The Nipper Building is a colloquial name for The Victor condominiums, and formerly, Building 17, RCA Victor Company, Camden Plant. The structure is a historical building located in Cooper Grant neighborhood of Camden, Camden County, New Jersey, United States. Since 1901, Camden was the headquarters of the Victor Talking Machine Company, later RCA Victor. Originally a Victrola cabinet factory, the building was converted into luxury apartments and retail space in 2004.
RCA Red Seal is a classical music label whose origin dates to 1902 and is currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment.
Edison Bell was an English company that was the first distributor and an early manufacturer of gramophones and gramophone records. The company survived through several incarnations, becoming a top producer of budget records in England through the early 1930s until, after it was absorbed by Decca in 1932, production of various Edison Bell labels ceased.
The Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) is a database catalog of master recordings made by American record companies during the 78rpm era. The 78rpm era was the time period in which any flat disc records were being played at a speed of 78 revolutions per minute. The DAHR provides some of these original recordings, free of charge, via audio streaming, along with access to the production catalogs of those same companies. DAHR is part of the American Discography Project (ADP), and is funded and operated in partnership by the University of California, Santa Barbara, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Packard Humanities Institute.
