This poster was made in the USA by J Ottman for the National Phonograph Company. The poster depicts the development of the phonograph from its invention by Thomas Edison in 1877, through to the beautiful (and expensive) phonographs designed for home entertainment that were available by 1906, when this poster was made.
The phonograph was an early machine for recording and replaying sound, which employed a rotating cylinder and needle system. While other inventors of the time has created machines capable of recording sounds, Edison's phonograph was the first to be able to play back the recoding. The phonograph was a predecessor to the gramophone, and later vinyl records, which used a flat rotating disk on a turntable, rather than a cylinder.
The poster was made using the process of lithography, an early printing technique that uses a stone a printing surface, and relies on the fact that water and oil repel one another.
Sarah Reeves
April 2017
References
https://www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/articles-and-essays/history-of-edison-sound-recordings/history-of-the-cylinder-phonograph/ Accessed 12/04/2017
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/edison/aa_edison_phonograph_1.html Accessed 12/04/2017
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/recon/jb_recon_phongrph_1.html Accessed 12/04/2017
http://www.intertique.com/EdisonSpringMotorID.html Accessed 12/04/2017
http://www.intertique.com/MoreEdisonTriumph.html Accessed 12/04/2017
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/l/lithography Accessed 12/04/2017
https://www.britannica.com/topic/lithography Accessed 12/04/2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHw5_1Hopsc Accessed 12/04/2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUXDltQfqSA Accessed 12/04/2017