March 4: Berliner’s Microphone

Emile Berliner invented one of the world’s first microphones on this date in 1877, designing it as a greatly improved telephone transmitter. Nine years later, he invented the gramophone, the first recording device to use disks, which he first marketed to toy companies before partnering with the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1901, later known as RCA Victor (“His Master’s voice”). In the course of his career, Berliner also invented a loom for the mass-production of cloth and an early version (1919) of the helicopter, among other creations. He also worked in the field of public health, creating an institute that helped safeguard the U.S. milk supply. In 1911 he established the Esther Berliner Fellowship (named for his mother) to give women the opportunity to pursue scientific research.

“Future generations will be able to condense within the space of twenty minutes a tone picture of a single lifetime. Five minutes of a child’s prattle, five of the boy’s exultation, five of the man’s reflections, and five from the feeble utterances from the death-bed. Will it not be like holding communion with immortality?” — Emile Berliner, 1888