Berliner, Emile, 1851-1929

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Emile Berliner (1851-1929) was a prominent inventor living at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. Overlooked by today's historians, Berliner's creative genius rivaled that of his better-known contemporaries Thomas Alva Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, and, like the works of these two inventors, Berliner's innovations helped shape the modern American way of life. Although Berliner did not invent recorded sound technology, his innovations led to its mass distribution. His flat-disc recordings eventually replaced the more fragile and unwieldy Edison cylinders as consumers' sound technology of choice.

Emile (originally Emil) Berliner was born in Hanover, Germany, on May 20, 1851. He was one of thirteen children born to Samuel and Sarah Fridman Berliner, two of whom died in infancy. His father was a merchant and a Talmudic scholar, and his mother was an amateur musician.

Following a few years of school in Hanover, Berliner was sent to nearby Wolfenbüttel to attend the Samsonschule from which he graduated in 1865 at the age of fourteen. This marked the end of his formal schooling and Berliner then spent several years at odd jobs in Hanover helping to support the large Berliner family. Enticed by the offer of a clerkship in a store partly owned by a man named Behrend, a Hanoverian who had emigrated to the United States some time earlier, and perhaps by a desire to escape the military duty that faced most young men in the year of the Franco-Prussian War, Berliner persuaded his parents to allow him to accept the job offer and to emigrate to America. In late March 1870 he left Hanover.

The dry-goods store was located in Washington, D.C. For three years Berliner clerked for Gotthelf, Behrend and Co. until in 1873 he decided a better opportunity awaited him in New York City. There Berliner again took up onerous jobs during the day while trying to improve himself by studying privately at night at the Cooper Institute. After a brief career as a "drummer" (traveling salesman) for a "gents' furnishings" (men's clothing and accessories) establishment in Milwaukee, Berliner again went back to New York where this time he was most fortunate in obtaining a position as general cleanup man in the laboratory of Constantine Fahlberg, the discoverer of saccharine. This experience in a research laboratory fired Berliner's ambition, and he decided that science, research, and invention were to be his destiny.

In 1876 Berliner returned to what was now Behrend and Co. in Washington and resumed his clerkship. That was the year of the American centennial celebrations, and among the outstanding events that took place in Washington was a demonstration of the new telephone of Alexander Graham Bell. Berliner saw the instrument for the first time and was filled with enthusiasm. He commenced to study the telephone. To his inquiring mind one of the instrument's weaknesses was its transmitter. Working alone in his rooming house he fashioned a new type of transmitter which he called a "loose-contact" transmitter, a type of microphone, which increased the volume of the transmitted voice. When the members of the newly-formed American Bell Telephone Company were advised that a young and entirely unknown man in Washington had submitted a caveat (Berliner wrote it himself without the aid of a patent attorney) to the Patent Office covering a new transmitter, they could hardly believe it. Thomas Watson, the Mr. Watson of telephone fame, was sent to Washington to make inquiries. He returned such a glowing report of the transmitter and of Berliner himself that the company offered to buy the rights to the invention and to hire Berliner as a research assistant. For the next seven years, Berliner was employed by the ABT Co., first in New York City and then in Boston. During those years Berliner worked on numerous problems associated with the fledgling telephone industry and developed into a first-class theoretical electrician.

While working in Boston in 1881, Berliner became an American citizen and in the same year married a young woman of German descent named Cora Adler. In 1884 Berliner decided to set himself up as a private researcher and inventor, his cherished dream. He resigned from the American Bell Telephone Company and he and Cora left Boston and set up housekeeping in Washington, D.C. The Berliners had six children, Edgar, Herbert, Henry, Louise, Hannah and Alice.

In Washington, Berliner began working on additional improvements to Bell's telephone, selling the rights to his patents to the telephone company. Then in 1886 he began working on the invention that was to prove his most important contribution to the world. This was the development of the gramophone, the recording and reproduction of sound by means of disc records. Among his other inventions were:

Floor Covering As early as 1883, while still working for the telephone company, Berliner obtained Patent 284,268 for a new type of floor covering which he termed Parquet Carpet. From time to time he returned to this work and he obtained additional Patents 621,316 in 1899 and 656,162 in 1900.

Acoustic Tile As one who frequently attended orchestral concerts, operas, and other musical events, as well as lectures, plays, and sermons, Berliner was well aware of the poor acoustics of many halls, theaters, churches, and synagogues. Having studied acoustics for many years, he decided to do something about the situation. He soon came up with a new type of tile that could be affixed to the existing walls of rooms. Acoustic tiles were, in the inventor's words, ". . . composed of porous cement, are as hard as stone, and yet have the resonance of wood when vibrated by a tuning fork."

In 1926 he obtained Patent 1,573,475 for these tiles. They were eminently successful in the days before public address systems. Among the buildings that added these tiles were the auditorium of Drexel University in Philadelphia, Stanley Theater in Jersey City, the Church of the Messiah in Montreal, Leicester Theatre in London, Uptown Theater in Philadelphia, the Second Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, and the board room of the Karachi Port Trust in what is now Pakistan.

The Helicopter and the Lightweight Internal Combustion Engine In 1906 or 1907 Emile Berliner became fascinated with the possibilities of the flying machine. This led to his involvement in the development of the helicopter which, as he himself said, was one of the earliest forms of heavier-than-air machines conceived, going back at least as far as the time of Leonardo da Vinci. Berliner designed and patented a new type of lightweight internal combustion engine to power the rotors. By 1909 he had constructed a working model that was capable of lifting the weight of two adult men, however the helicopter was tethered to the ground and no free flight was attempted. Although Berliner had to relinquish his work on the helicopter, his son Henry continued it.

Emile Berliner for many years took an active role in community and social causes, particularly in the public health field. In 1909 he donated funds for an infirmary building at the Starmont Tuberculosis Sanitarium in Washington Grove, Maryland, dedicated to the memory of his father. Berliner was president of the Washington Tuberculosis Association for some years. In 1924, he inaugurated the Bureau of Health Education to promote public hygiene and health education for mothers and children.

The subject of children's health was close to his heart. In 1900 his youngest daughter, Alice, became desperately ill, very likely from bacteria picked up from some food or drink. Because of this illness Berliner campaigned against the high mortality rate of babies and young children. He became a fervent advocate of clean milk and by all means at his disposal he preached to mothers to "scald the milk" before serving it. He also became disgusted by what he perceived to be the neglect of cleanliness in children. In 1919 he and some of his associates wrote and published a book of colored drawings with accompanying rhymes illustrating what happens to children who neglect cleanliness. Entitled Muddy Jim, the book was given to schools in the Washington area and elsewhere. All the rhymes were written by Emile Berliner. The book was soon translated into French, possibly for distribution in the Canadian province of Quebec.

Zionism was another cause that involved Emile Berliner deeply. Between 1913 and 1918, Berliner wrote four articles on the subject: "The Social Status of the Jews," "Zionism and the American Spirit," "Americanism and Zionism," and "Thoughts on Zionism." In 1919 Berliner was named chairman of the Committee on Arrangements for a reception for the celebrated rabbi Stephen S. Wise. During the same year he wrote a letter to the editors of both the Washington Star and the Washington Post concerning the second commemoration of the 1917 declaration by British statesman Arthur Balfour that "His Majesty's Government favors establishment of a national home for the Jews in Palestine." In 1919, Berliner wrote another article on "A Study Towards the Solution of Industrial Problems in the New Zionist Commonwealth."

Berliner inherited a great fondness for music from his mother and was an avid concert-goer. That he could play the piano is attested by one of his assistants in the gramophone laboratory who said that Berliner was the pianist on some of the very early recordings. In 1897 he wrote a song entitled "Columbian Anthem" in honor of the nation's capital, the District of Columbia. It was arranged for male quartet and was recorded in 1897 on Berliner record 4288 and seems to have been re-recorded several times before June 1900.

In addition to his contributions to the progress of recorded sound, Emile Berliner worked tirelessly in many other endeavors both business-related and philanthropic. His development of microphone and recorded sound technology remains, however, the greater part of his legacy. His work on microphones was so successful that it replaced the earlier microphone used by Alexander Graham Bell for his telephone systems. It is still the basic design used in most microphones manufactured today. His flat-disc design for the gramophone has became the standard for mass-produced commercial sound recordings and was the precursor of today's digital compact discs.

Emile Berliner died on August 3, 1929, in his seventy-ninth year.

Archival Resources
Role Title Holding Repository
referencedIn RCA Corporation. Office of Company Historian. Files of B.L. Aldridge, 1897-1980. Hagley Museum & Library
creatorOf Vol. CXLI. [1914?]-1931.includes:ff. 1, 3, 18 Mary Jennings, wife of H Jennings, of Washington, DC: Letters to Marie Stopes from Mary Jennings: 1914?-1918.ff. 7, 112 Lilian Russ, afterwards De H-: Letters to Marie Stopes from Lilian Russ: 1914, ..., 1914-1931 British Library
referencedIn Coffin, James H. (James Henry), 1806-1873. James Henry Coffin Papers, 1848-1884 Smithsonian Institution Archives
referencedIn Smithsonian Institution. Office of the Secretary. Correspondence, 1865-1891 Smithsonian Institution Archives
referencedIn Dodelin, Emil A. Victor Talking Machine Company paper, 1972 Nov. 12. Camden County Historical Society
creatorOf Lawrence, A. F. R. Collection of historical spoken word [sound recording], 1900-1970. New York Public Library System, NYPL
referencedIn Miscellaneous correspondence, 1915-1954 Houghton Library
creatorOf Berliner, Emile, 1851-1929. Berliner disc collection, 1891-1898. University of California, Santa Barbara, UCSB Library
creatorOf Sarton, George, 1884-1956. Miscellaneous correspondence, 1915-1954. Houghton Library
referencedIn Smithsonian Institution. Office of the Secretary. Correspondence, 1863-1879 Smithsonian Institution Archives
referencedIn Franklin Institute (Philadelphia, Pa.). Committee on Science and Arts. Records, 1824-1900 [microform]. Hagley Museum & Library
creatorOf Berliner, Emile, 1851-1929. Correspondence with Carl Zigrosser, 1921-1927. University of Pennsylvania Libraries, Van Pelt Library
referencedIn Records of the Patent and Trademark Office. 1836 - 1978. Selected Patent Files. 1840 - 2005. 174465 - Improvement in Telegraphy - Alexander Graham Bell National Archives at College Park
creatorOf Emile Berliner collection, 1871-1965, 1871-1930 Library of Congress. Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division
referencedIn Storrow, James Jackson, 1837-1897. Deposition of Charles R. Cross in United States of America v. American Bell Telephone Company and Emile Berliner, 1893. Harvard Law School Library Langdell Hall Cambridge, MA 02138
referencedIn Radio Corporation of America. RCA Victor Record Division. Records, 1901-1982. Camden County Historical Society
creatorOf Berliner, Emile, 1851-1929. Emile Berliner papers, 1856-1929. Library of Congress
creatorOf Berliner, Emile, 1851-1929. Emile Berliner letter, 1928 June 6. The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives
referencedIn Pensiero, Nicholas F., 1918-2003. Papers, 1904-1984 [bulk, 1974-1984]. Hagley Museum & Library
referencedIn A.F.R. Lawrence collection of historical spoken word [sound recording], 1900-1970 The New York Public Library. Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound.
Role Title Holding Repository
referencedIn 372786 - Gramophone - Emile Berliner National Archives at College Park
Relation Name
correspondedWith Allen, Roy Morris, 1882- person
associatedWith American Bell Telephone Company. corporateBody
associatedWith American Telephone and Telegraph Company. corporateBody
associatedWith Bell, Alexander Graham, 1847-1922 person
associatedWith Bellini, Vincenzo, 1801-1835 person
associatedWith Benedict, Julius, 1804-1885 person
associatedWith Berliner, Cora A., 1862-1942 person
associatedWith Berliner family. family
correspondedWith Berliner, Jacob, 1849-1918 person
associatedWith Berliner (Record company) corporateBody
associatedWith Bischoff, J. W. (John W.), 1850-1909 person
associatedWith Bishop, Henry R. (Henry Rowley), 1786-1855 person
associatedWith Bliss, P. P. (Philip Paul), 1838-1876 person
associatedWith Bowers, Frederic V., 1874-1961 person
associatedWith Bruniau, A. person
associatedWith Buffalo Bill, 1846-1917 person
associatedWith Capitol Building corporateBody
associatedWith Chambers, William Paris, 1854-1913 person
associatedWith Covert, B. (Bernard), b. 1820 person
associatedWith Denza, Luigi. person
associatedWith Dodelin, Emil A. person
associatedWith Dresser, Paul, 1858-1906 person
associatedWith Faure, J. (Jean), 1830-1914 person
associatedWith Foster, Stephen Collins, 1826-1864 person
associatedWith Franklin Institute (Philadelphia, Pa.). Committee on Science and Arts. corporateBody
associatedWith Gaisberg, Frederick William. person
associatedWith Gilmore, P. S. (Patrick Sarsfield), 1829-1892 person
associatedWith Graham, George, fl. 1896-1903 person
associatedWith Hastings, Thomas, 1784-1872 person
correspondedWith Henry, Joseph, 1797-1878 person
associatedWith Herbert, Victor, 1859-1924 person
associatedWith Howard, Joseph E. (Joseph Edgar), 1878-1961 person
associatedWith Hunting, Russell. person
correspondedWith Hyatt, John W. (John Wesley), 1837-1920 person
associatedWith Ingersoll, Robert Green, 1833-1899 person
associatedWith Jones, Sidney, 1861-1946 person
associatedWith King, Florence. person
associatedWith Koninsky, Sadie. person
associatedWith Lawrence, A. F. R person
associatedWith Lawrence, A. F. R. person
associatedWith Lecocq, Charles, 1832-1918 person
associatedWith Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 person
associatedWith Lowry, Robert, 1826-1899 person
associatedWith McGlennon, Felix, 1856-1943 person
associatedWith Metz, Theodore A., 1848-1936 person
associatedWith Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 1791-1864 person
associatedWith Pensiero, Nicholas F., 1918-2003. corporateBody
associatedWith Petrie, H. W. (Henry W.), 1857-1925 person
associatedWith Phillips, Walter A. person
associatedWith Pryor, Arthur, 1870-1942 person
associatedWith Radio Corporation of America. RCA Victor Record Division. corporateBody
associatedWith RCA Corporation. Office of Company Historian. corporateBody
correspondedWith Rhees, William J. person
correspondedWith Richards, W. L. (William L.) person
associatedWith Rieger, William H. person
associatedWith Root, George F. (George Frederick), 1820-1895 person
associatedWith Rosey, Geo. (George) person
associatedWith Rossini, Gioacchino, 1792-1868 person
associatedWith Sanders, Joseph, 1877-1960 person
associatedWith Santelmann, William H. (William Henry), 1863-1932 person
associatedWith Sarton, George, 1884-1956. person
associatedWith Shaw, David T. person
correspondedWith Smithsonian Institution corporateBody
associatedWith Sousa, John Philip, 1854-1932 person
associatedWith Stewart, Cal, 1856-1919 person
associatedWith Storrow, James Jackson, 1837-1897. person
associatedWith Stults, R. M. person
associatedWith Suess, W. person
associatedWith Tobani, Theo. M. (Theodore Moses), 1855-1933 person
associatedWith Udall, Lyn. person
associatedWith Waldteufel, Emil, 1837-1915 person
correspondedWith Weymer, Harry K. person
associatedWith Witmark, Frank M. person
associatedWith Wood, N. R. person
associatedWith Yradier, Sebastián, 1809-1865 person
Place Name Admin Code Country
Hannover 06 DE
Washington, D. C. DC US
Subject
Acoustical engineering
Acoustical materials
Acoustics
Applied Science, General
Architectural acoustics
Chemistry
Health education
Electrical Discharge
Electricity
Flight
German Americans
Ghost dance
Helicopters
Immigrants
Inventions
Inventors
Jews
Microphone
Milk
Popular music
Patents
Patents
Patent suits
Phonograph
Phonograph
Public health
Recommendations For Positions
Scientific publications
Sound
Sound
Sound
Sound
Sound recordings
Sound recordings
Telephone
Telephone
Zionism
Occupation
Health reformers
Inventors
Inventors
Activity

Person

Birth 1851-05-20

Death 1929-08-03

Americans

English,

German

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