Emile Berliner

Emile Berliner was a prolific German-American inventor and businessman.

He is best known for creating the lateral-cut flat disc record. This invention became known as the gramophone record. These records were used with a device called a gramophone to play music. His work changed how people listened to recorded sound. Berliner's ability to turn scientific ideas into useful products made him a significant figure in the history of technology.

Berliner's most famous process involved creating many copies of a sound recording.

He used a method called electroplating to produce these copies. First, he would create a master disc. These master discs were often made of etched zinc. He then used electroplating, which is a chemical process, to create duplicate copies of these flat zinc discs. This allowed for the mass production of records. In 1890, some of these were sold in Europe as five-inch hard rubber discs for toy gramophones.

However, Berliner wanted his invention to be more than a mere toy.

Berliner's career was marked by both great success and difficult legal battles. He originally moved to the United States in 1870 to avoid being drafted into the Franco-Prussian War. While living in New York, he worked various jobs like a paper route to pay for his physics studies at the Cooper Union Institute. He later invented an improved telephone transmitter, which was one of the first types of microphones. This invention led to a long legal fight with Thomas Edison. In 1901, the United States Court of Appeals ruled that the patent for the carbon transmitter belonged to Edison. The court stated that Edison had preceded Berliner in the transmission of speech.

In 1894, Berliner turned his focus toward building a lasting business. He successfully persuaded a group of businessmen to invest $25,000 in his vision. With this money, he founded the United States Gramophone Company. This move helped transition his recording technology from a novelty into a major industry. His work with the gramophone helped establish the foundation for how recorded music would be distributed for many years to come.

Beyond audio technology, Berliner was deeply interested in the science of vertical flight.

Between 1907 and 1926, he worked on technologies for helicopters. He worked with J. Newton Williams to build an early helicopter in Washington, D.C. To make these machines work, he needed better power sources. He helped develop a 36-hp rotary engine for use in helicopters. A rotary engine is a type of motor where the cylinders rotate around a central crankshaft. This was a lighter innovation compared to the heavier inline engines used at the time. In 1909, he founded the Gyro Motor Company to pursue these aeronautical goals.

Berliner's experiments with flight were quite advanced for his time. By 1910, he was testing a vertically mounted tail rotor. This part was designed to counteract torque, which is the twisting force caused by the main rotor. This specific configuration is similar to the designs used in practical helicopters in the 1940s. On June 16, 1922, Emile and his son Henry demonstrated a helicopter to the US Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics. Although his son Henry later founded the Berliner Aircraft Company, the original Gyro Motor Company shut down in 1925.

Emile Berliner was also a man of many diverse interests and social views. He invented other items, such as a new type of loom for mass-producing cloth and acoustic tiles. He was an agnostic, meaning he held specific views on religion and philosophy, which he wrote about in his 1899 book, *Conclusions*. He also advocated for women's equality and improvements in public health. In 1908, he established the Sarah Berliner Research Fellowship to honor his mother. Berliner died of a heart attack on August 3, 1929, at the age of 78.

He is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C.