CLPGS First Patron

The CLPGS's first patron was Thomas Alva Edison.

Thomas Edison was born on 11 February 1847 and was an inventor who developed many devices, including in 1877, the gramophone, also known as the phonograph.

While other inventors had produced devices that could record sounds, Edison's phonograph was the first to be able to reproduce the recorded sound. Although Edison began experimenting on the Phonograph using wax coated paper as a recording medium, this first Phonograph recorded sound onto a tinfoil sheet phonograph cylinder.

Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Laboratory made several improvements in the 1880s, including the use of wax-coated cardboard cylinders, and a cutting stylus that moved from side to side in a "zig zag" pattern across the record.

Then at the turn of the century, Emile Berliner initiated the transition from phonograph cylinders to gramophone records: flat, double-sided discs with a spiral groove running from the periphery to near the center. Other improvements were made throughout the years, including modifications to the turntable and its drive system, the needle and stylus, and the sound and equalization systems.