Dr. Paul Israel

Edison could come up with a design.

The machine shop could make it.

They could experiment with it and then modify it.

And two experimenters.

And he's working on additional telegraph technologies.

One of those becomes what we know today as a telephone.

At that time, it was called a speaking telegraph.

Edison doesn't invent the first telephone.

A guy named Alexander Graham Bell does.

And in 1876, at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia—

it becomes one of the big things, right?

The demonstration of the telephone there.

And Western Union is increasingly interested in having Edison work on this new technology.

And one of the things that comes out of his work on the telephone is

is a way to record telephone messages, because Edison thinks about it like a telegraph, and recording and playback would be important.

And this becomes an entirely independent invention called the phonograph, the first ever system for recording and playing back sound.

What impact did the phonograph have on Edison's work at Menlo Park?

The phonograph changes everything.

It's what makes Edison famous.

It attracts investors associated with the Bell Company, who set up the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company.