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The
Other Sides of By Allan Sutton
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. 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. 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.
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 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. After the Emerson
Phonograph Company: Kiddie Rekords 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).
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 Kiddie Rekord Co.: "Kiddie
Rekord." U.S. Patent Office: Trademark application #174,695 (filed
1/17/1923) |
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