Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, Ford Rouge Factory Tour and Giant Screen Experience will be closed Monday, March 16, for a day of staff learning and development. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, Ford Rouge Factory Tour and Giant Screen Experience will be closed Monday, March 16, for a day of staff learning and development. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Thomas Edison, Charles Batchelor, and Uriah Painter with Edison's Phonograph, April 18, 1878

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Artifact Overview

While in Washington, D.C., for an 1878 presentation to the National Academy of Sciences, inventor Thomas Edison, his lab assistant Charles Batchelor, and Philadelphia Inquirer correspondent Uriah Painter sat for famed Civil War photographer Mathew Brady. They posed with Edison's phonograph, a new invention that could, for the first time, record and reproduce sound. The machine made Edison an overnight celebrity.

Artifact Details

Artifact

Photographic print

Subject Date

18 April 1878

Creators

Place of Creation

Collection Title

Thomas A. Edison Collection

Location

By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center

Object ID

84.1.1630.P.188.2901

Credit

From the Collections of The Henry Ford.

Material

Paper (Fiber product)
Linen (Material)

Technique

Gelatin silver process

Color

Black-and-white (Colors)

Dimensions

Height: 11 in
Width: 7.5 in

Inscriptions

Handwritten on original photo from which this copy was made, across lower edge: S. Bergmann
Keywords
Thomas Edison, Charles Batchelor, and Uriah Painter with Edison's Phonograph, April 18, 1878