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Victor Hugo Emerson, an inveterate tinkerer and entrepreneur, didn't limit himself to a single business after leaving Columbia in 1914. His Emerson Phonograph Company is chronicled elsewhere on this site; some of his lesser-known ventures are explored here.

Victor Emerson mastered the craft of cylinder recording at the New Jersey and United States Phonograph companies before joining the Columbia Phonograph Company in late 1896 as a recording manager. In early 1897 he organized the Columbia Orchestra as a replacement for Edward Issler's orchestra, and by the early 1900s he was serving as Columbia's chief recording engineer. Emerson was largely responsible for conceiving and launching the hugely popular Little Wonder records shortly before leaving Columbia in 1914. The story behind that venture — complete with secret deals and more than a little legal drama — is told in Tim Brooks' and Merle Sprinzen's Little Wonder Records and Bubble Books: An Illustrated History and Discography (Mainspring Press).

An inveterate tinkerer, Emerson was awarded at least fourteen U.S. patents relating to sound recording and reproduction between 1893 and 1905, including one for an almost certainly unworkable magnetic recorder that employed the scrapings from an iron needle on an abrasive-coated disc. He was still being granted patents as late as 1922.

The history of Victor Emerson's most notable undertaking, the Emerson Phonograph Company, is chronicled elsewhere on this site, but that's only a part of the Emerson story.

Picture Discs and Oilcloth Pressings

Among the Emerson Phonograph Company's clients was the Talking Book Corporation (358 Fifth Avenue, New York). Emerson at first produced semi-flexible black plastic discs that were mounted in illustrated books. Although somewhat "educational" in nature, these first Talking Books (introduced in 1917) were not overtly for the children's market. That changed in 1919, when Emerson introduced semiflexible, small-diameter children's records pressed in a transparent plastic that was laminated over colorful die-cut cardboard figures. First announced in the Talking Machine World for May 15, 1919, Talking Books were manufactured by a process patented by Emerson (#1,399,757). According to TMW, "elocutionists of note and merit make these talking records, so that the child's ear is attuned to perfection of sound from infancy...." Unfortunately, the celluloid surfaces were easily damaged by steel needles, and the records were sometimes peeled from their backings or otherwise abused. Specimens that have survived intact and in good condition are eagerly sought by collectors.

Emerson also used his picture record process to produce Talk-O-Photo records in a joint venture with R.B. ("Pat") Wheelan, a physical fitness expert best known by collectors for his 1921 Musical Health Builder "Daily Dozen" records. Wheelan arranged to have his Talk-O-Photo picture discs produced under license from Emerson's Talking Book Corporation and filed his trademark application on August 9, 1920, claiming use of the brand since June 15, 1920.

Selling for 35¢ each or three for $1, Talk-O-Photo records featured short talks and recitations by popular silent film stars and were pressed in transparent plastic laminated over a cardboard base that pictured the performer on the blank reverse. Masters, numbered in the same series as Emerson's standard seven-inch recordings, were produced for Talk-O-Photo's exclusive use, and Talk-O-Photo catalog numbers were derived from the masters' last two digits (e.g., Talk-O-Photo 74 = Emerson mx. 21574), accounting for the large gaps in Talk-O-Photo's numerical sequence. A July 1920 ad claimed "100 leading artists under exclusive contract," including Gloria Swanson, Mae Murray, Lew Cody, and H. B. Warner, but interest in talking records by silent-film stars must have been negligible. Only a fraction of those "100 leading artists" actually saw release before the venture folded. As with the Talking Books, the records' surfaces were easily damaged, and few specimens have survived.

In December 1919 Emerson, with Alexander N. Pierman, filed a patent application for yet another novel form of disc record. The patent covered a flexible fabric-based disc with a linseed-oil surface — in other words, a form of oilcloth. There is no evidence that Emerson ever used the process commercially.

Emerson and the U.S. Record Manufacturing Corporation

Beginning in 1920, Victor Emerson became increasingly involved with ancillary businesses. In April of that year he incorporated the United States Record Manufacturing Corporation (Pierce Street, Long Island City, New York) "for the manufacture of records and other thermoplastic materials," capitalized at $1 million.

USRMC was to serve as a contract pressing plant with Emerson as its primary customer, and the company shared production space with Emerson's in-house printing plant on Pierce Street. Officers included Emerson (president); Bernard D. Colen, also of Emerson (secretary and treasurer); and George W. Beadle, formerly of Columbia (consulting engineer). The plant was in operation by the autumn of 1920, and Emerson reportedly guaranteed a minimum daily order of 50,000 pressings. But despite such assurances, the company suspended operations in 1921.

USRMC produced several now-rare labels in the early 1920s. It's yet to be determined if USRMC maintained its own studios, but its masters so far have not been traced to other sources. Given Emerson's control of the plant, it seems likely that the masters were recorded by that company for USRMC's exclusive use. The design of USRMC's Rialto label was later recycled by the Scranton Button Company, after it acquired control of the Emerson records, for its Dandy label.

The Southern States Phonograph Corporation

Another Emerson pressing-plant venture was the Southern States Phonograph Company (Atlanta, Georgia), founded by A.H. Carlisle in 1920 with at least some financial backing from Emerson. Southern States immediately secured a contract to press discs for Emerson and its Talking Book Corporation affiliate, of which Carlisle was president. What other brands, if any, were pressed by Southern States are not known.

Like USRMC, Southern States' fortunes declined along with those of Emerson. A notice in the Talking Machine World for June 15, 1921 announced that the entire contents of the its plant were offered for sale by the Dixie Paper & Box Company of Atlanta, which would "ship anywhere."

After the Emerson Phonograph Company: Kiddie Rekords
and Kodisk Blanks

In May 1922 Victor Emerson disposed of his failing Emerson Phonograph Company after two years of financial and legal difficulties. Emerson had no further connection with the company he founded after mid-1922, but he was far from inactive. In 1922 he founded the Kiddie Rekord Company (Plainfield, New Jersey) and the Metal Recording Disc Company (New York).

The Kiddie Rekord Company was incorporated in New York with a rather meager capitalization of $30,000 in June 1922. Pressing was contracted to the Bridgeport Die & Machine Company of Connecticut (manufacturers of Broadway and Puritan discs), and BD&M president James Ogden also served as treasurer of the new company. The company filed a trademark application on January 17, 1923, claiming use of the Kiddie Rekord brand on records since June 28, 1922. The six-inch discs, again using Emerson's picture-disc technology, were pressed in transparent celluloid laminated to illustrated cardboard bases. There was an initial flurry of interest, but the company apparently did not survive beyond 1923.

The Metal Recording Disc Company (New York), founded by Emerson and his son, manufactured Kodisk blank metal home-recording discs. The trademark application, filed in July 1922, claimed use of the Kodisk brand beginning in May of that year. The public failed to show much interest in acoustic home recording, which produced a barely intelligible recording at best, and Emerson sold his interest in the company several years later.

In 1925, Emerson retired to California in poor health. He died there, of a heart attack, on June 22, 1926. In the fast-changing recording industry, Emerson's reputation had already faded by the time of death. The man whose products and actions had once dominated the pages of The Talking Machine World received only a single-paragraph obituary in that publication.

References

Columbia Records Catalog, 4/15/1897 (cited in Brooks, Tim: "A Directory to Recording Artists of the 1890s." ARSC Journal (11:2–3, 1979), p. 109

Emerson, Victor H., and Alexander N. Pierman. "Record Surfacing and Procduction Thereof." U.S. Patent Office: Patent #1,328,371 (filed 1/4/1919; issued 1/20/1920)

Kiddie Rekord Co.: "Kiddie Rekord." U.S. Patent Office: Trademark application #174,695 (filed 1/17/1923)

"Kiddie Rekord Co. Organized." Talking Machine World (9/15/1922)

Metal Recording Disk Company. "Kodisk." U.S. Patent Office: Trademark applications # 167,313 and 167,314 (filed 7/24/1922)

Talking Photo Corp.: "Talk-O-Photo." U.S. Patent Office: Trademark application #135,956 (filed 8/9/1920)

"Victor Hugo Emerson Dead." Talking Machine World (7/15/1926)

Wilson, George E. and Blacker, George: "Talk-O-Photo." Record Research, serialized beginning 243/244 (5–6/1990)