by Emily Rinaman, Technical Services Manager
Through apps like Spotify and Pandora, music lovers can select their desired songs at any moment of the day with the tap of a finger. Not long ago, however, it wasn’t so simple. In most of our lifetimes it was still relatively easy if one had the compact disc, cassette tape or vinyl record to match with its partnering device. Predating those one may have needed to wait patiently for the local radio station to put the song on air.
An ad for “Victor Records,” sold at the C.J. Schmidt Piano Co. in Tiffin in the early 1920s.
The beginnings of music on demand, though, can be traced to right before the telephone (which is, ironically, the same device often used to find and play the music). Prior to perfecting his patent on the telephone, he in a round-about way practiced by developing the phonograph. A similar device, the gramophone, was invented the same year – 1877 – by Emil Berliner.
The earliest phonographs/gramophones had to be cranked, and even then the sound was spotty. “Once the purchaser had mastered trip ‘D,’ yoke ‘A,’ knob ‘B,’ and brake lever ‘E,’ the phonograph was beautifully simple. You put on a record, put in a fresh needle, gave a few turns to the crank that stuck out on the right side of the cabinet, switch off brake lever ‘E’, and carefully lowered the needle into the groove keeping a firm grip.” (Maybe modern television remotes aren’t as complicated as we make them seem?)
A record player at the library in 1957. This photo can be found with many other library photos on the Seneca County Digital Library.
Besides being heavy (almost one pound) and clunky (“the only maintenance needed—the manual said--was the occasional lubrication of the spring motor, a drop of oil now and then on 2-3 bearings and the friction leather of the brake” ), only those who could afford them bought one. Just as people gather for a live concert, or as people once gathered around the radio in the evenings, listening to a phonograph was a social affair, especially in rural Ohio.
Early residents of Seneca County had many excuses to congregate for a phonograph playing. In the summer, a phonograph would play in the background at the beach, tent revival meetings, and at homemade ice cream socials. Residents who owned phonographs would take turns hosting the socials. In Iler, Bence Riffle was the sole owner of a phonograph and “took great pride” in it. He got the floral design on it touched up every few years until World War I when an American flag was added.
In the fall when school started, students in Bascom could reminisce these summer days as they listed to the phonograph placed in the school hallway.
Once the ease of listening to music at home and private parties developed into a mainstay in society, music players became a staple in many more American homes. One junior home kid recalled “rolling back the carpets and cranking up the Victrola” at one of the cottages on the Junior Home campus. They would dance until late at night on their makeshift dance floor eating sandwiches and drinking cider.
While socializing with the sounds emitting from a contraption may have been exciting to many, not everyone was enthralled. Some old-fashioned opinions feared that music players would decimate the instruction of musical instruments to young minds. “In the 1800s, if you wanted to hear a song, you had only two options—listen while someone played it live or else you played it yourself.”
These opinions proved to be not just unfounded, but the complete opposite of what happened. “The phonograph inspired more and more people to pick up instruments and the number of music teachers per capita in the U.S. rose by 25 percent from 1890-1910,” explains the Smithsonian Magazine.
Students at Calvert in 1962 gather around a new Juke Box. Many Calvertana yearbooks, including the 1962 annual, have been digitized on the Seneca County Digital Library.
Locally, they C.J. Schimidt Piano Company was a dealer of Victrolas (the official name for Berliner’s Victor Talking Machine Company’s product), holding a “complete stock” of Victor Records (see photo of advertisement). Different versions of their ads ran over the course of several years during the late 1910s and early 1920s in Tiffin High School’s student publication, the Tiffinian, and yearbook, the Blue and Gold. It only makes sense since the piano had been the most often used instrument for a family gathering of music before the phonograph.
The instruction of music locally continued to boom for decades afterward – the Tiffin Woman’s Club hosted a program in December 1931 with Mrs. Louis Lonsway teaching a course of selected operas, which were “illustrated by voice, piano and Victrola records.”
Eventually phonographs fizzled out as record players emerged, which came in two forms – personal record players for the home and jukeboxes placed in many public places. Either way, these new inventions continued the pastime of enjoying music together.
Juke boxes were easy – the songs and records were already loaded inside (up to ten whole songs in the beginning!), all that was needed was a coin or two and the machine would do the rest of the work. In fact, the early juke boxes were actually known as “nickel-in-the-slot phonographs.” One of the most widely known were Wurlitzers.
A Greek club at Tiffin University caught the juke box hype in the late 1960s, raising funds to add one to the Student Union in early 1971 and purchasing another in Findlay for the Snack Bar. The juke box then became a way to in turn earn the funds back and save for future projects.
Juke boxes still exist today, although they are now completely digital. Computer chips have replaced the records and touch screens have replaced the coin slots (can you just imagine people trying to crank a lever and place a needle into a groove at a rowdy sports bar? It probably wouldn’t even pass modern codes).
The idea remains the same, though. Music brings people together. The bright side is that the digital world makes it easier for the songs of yesterday to continue to thrive, despite the mode used to play them.
Works cited:
Village of Iler. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/40789
Seneca County, Ohio History & Families. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/28319
Bascom Area Sesquicentennial 1837-1987. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/41849
Seneca County Museum Newsletter Fall 1990. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/42427
Tystanac. February 1971 and March 1974. Seneca County Digital Library.
Junior Homekid, December 1989. Seneca County Digital Library.
Tiffin Woman’s Club Program 1930-1931. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/40746
Vaughn, Grace Lenehan. “The History of the Jukebox: From the 1880s to Today.” Wide Open Country. 6 May 2021. https://www.wideopencountry.com/history-of-the-jukebox/
Thompson, Clive. “How the Phonograph Changed Music Forever.” Smithsonian Magazine, January 2016. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/phonograph-changed-music-forever-180957677/
“V is for Victrola Record Players: The History of the Famous Gramophones that Entertained Millions.” Click America. https://clickamericana.com/media/music/v-is-for-victrola-record-players-the-history-of-the-gramophones-that-entertained-millions
Seneca County Digital Library. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/search