Sure enough, the cow dropped a quarter into the jukebox and Old MacDonald Had a Farm was soon blasting through the speakers. With a cluck-cluck here, a bark-bark there, and a moo-moo everywhere, the animals soon had the entire diner singing along.
This musical lunch experience got us to thinking about the jukebox. Who invented that marvelous contraption and how long has it been around? The first jukebox in history looked nothing like the jukeboxes we're familiar with today. The machine was an Edison phonograph modified with a coin slot and installed inside an oak cabinet. A pound sulfuric acid battery provided electricity to run the phonograph.
It could only play one wax cylinder at a time, which had to be changed by hand. Since amplification hadn't been developed yet, users had to listen to the music through one of four listening tubes. The tubes looked a bit like stethoscopes that went into people's ears. Handkerchiefs hung on the side of the machine, so people could wipe off the tubes after each use. It cost a nickel for each tube per song.
Glass referred to his machine as a "nickel-in-the- slot " phonograph. This name eventually evolved into nickelodeon, which was a popular nickname for early jukeboxes. As technology advanced, so did the jukebox. In , John Gabel's "Automatic Entertainer" could play 24 different selections on inch discs. In the s, three manufacturers competed to build the best jukebox in the world: Wurlitzer, Seeburg, and Rock-ola.
For example, Seeburg's "Select-O-Matic" jukebox offered selections. The jukebox arguably reached the height of its popularity in the s. Experts estimate there were as many as , jukeboxes across the U. Over time, records gave way to compact discs CDs. Today, modern jukeboxes simply play digital music files. This allows today's jukeboxes to offer thousands of selections. Rock-ola is the last jukebox factory in the U. The company still supplies all the machines for Johnny Rockets, a s themed restaurant chain.
Some experts believe there are still as many as , jukeboxes across the U. Are you ready to rock? Ask a friend or family member to help you check out the following activities:. Hi koda. Thanks for having out back. Just joking you can have your own opinion,but at least be nice about it.
Its okay to have an opinion,but was very rude to just flat out say "This websites dumb" or something like that. We're sorry you feel that way, Wonder Friend. There's nothing that's off-limits, Baylea! We think girls can do anything they want to do. We are undergoing some spring clearing site maintenance and need to temporarily disable the commenting feature.
Thanks for your patience. Drag a word to its definition. You have answered 0 of 3 questions correctly and your score is:. Want to add a little wonder to your website?
Help spread the wonder of families learning together. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Mary Bellis. Inventions Expert.
Mary Bellis covered inventions and inventors for ThoughtCo for 18 years. She is known for her independent films and documentaries, including one about Alexander Graham Bell.
Updated February 24, Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Bellis, Mary. History of the JukeBox. Emile Berliner and the History of the Gramophone. Thomas Edison's Greatest Inventions.
Biography of Thomas Edison, American Inventor. Important Innovations and Inventions, Past and Present. Edison's Invention of the Phonograph.
James Hargreaves and the Invention of the Spinning Jenny. Today in History: Inventions, Patents, and Copyrights. Your Privacy Rights. By about , sales of records for use in jukeboxes was a large percentage of total record sales. Soon, listening to records on the jukebox became a fad, stimulating even greater sales of records. The jukebox was sometimes the center of controversy. Parents, concerned by the popularity of swing and Jazz music, thought the machines were a bad influence on their children.
The association of the jukebox with bars gave it a somewhat seedy reputation—the term juke joint used to refer to a dive or a low-class bar. The questionable reputation of the jukebox got even blacker when scandal erupted in the New York area after it was discovered that the Mafia controlled the operation of jukeboxes throughout the area. Nevertheless, jukebox listening continued to provide entertainment through the war years.
The s and s are considered the heyday of the jukebox, when listening was at an all-time high. The machines made in these years were elaborate and flashy—in fact the jukeboxes of the s had chrome grills and tailfins like cars. These machines were made to last almost forever, but the coming of the rpm record in banished the beautiful jukeboxes of the 30s and 40s to the junkyard.
Today they are prized by collectors. As the life span of the rpm record began to slow in the s, it was the jukebox that kept the 45 alive for a few more years. But jukebox manufacturers began to switch to CDs in recent years, and the old machines are rarely seen outside private collections today.
0コメント