 Charles Sumner Tainter, ca. 1896 |
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| Born | April 25, 1854 Watertown, Massachusetts |
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| Died | April 20, 1940 |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | phonograph, graphophone and photophone |
Charles Sumner Tainter (April 25, 1854 – April 20, 1940) was an American engineer and inventor, best known for his collaborations with Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, Alexander's father-in-law Gardiner Hubbard, and for his significant improvements to Thomas Edison's phonograph, resulting in the Graphophone, one version of which was the first dictaphone.[1]
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Biography
Tainter was born in Watertown, Massachusetts, where he went to public school. His education was modest, he acquired his knowledge mostly through self-education. In 1873, he took a job for a company producing telescopes in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which then came under contract to conduct observations of the transit of Venus on December 8, 1874, resulting in Tainter being sent with the observation expedition to New Zealand. In 1878 he opened a shop for the production of scientific instruments in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. A year later Alexander Graham Bell called Tainter to his Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C., where he would work for the next seven years.[1][2]
During this time, Tainter worked with the Bells on several inventions, amongst them the phonograph, the photophone and also the graphophone, a substantial improvement of Edison's earlier phonograph, for which he received several patents.[1] Edison subsequently sued the Volta Graphophone Company (of which Tainter was part owner) for patent infringement, but the case was settled by a compromise between the two.
In 1886, he married Lila R. Munro, and over the next years worked in Washington, perfecting his graphophone and founding a company trying to market the graphophone as a dictation machine: the first dictaphone. In 1887 Tainter invented the helically wound paper tube as an improved graphophone cylinder. This design was light and strong, and came to be widely used in applications far removed from its original intent, such as mailing tubes and product containers.
His ill health (he was frequently sick with pneumonia) made him and his wife move to San Diego in 1903. After the death of his first wife in 1924, he married Laura F. Onderdonk in 1928.
Tainter received several distinguished awards for his graphophone.[2] In 1947 Onderdonk donated ten surviving volumes (out of 13) of Tainter's Home Notebooks to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History; volumes 9, 10 and 13 unfortunately having been destroyed in a fire in September 1897.[1][2] The daily agenda books described in detail the project work Tainter conducted at the laboratory during the 1880s.[3][2]
Patents
Patent images viewable in TIFF format
- U.S. Patent 235,496 Photophone Transmitter, filed September 1880, issued December 1880 (with Alexander Bell)
- U.S. Patent 235,497 Selenium Cell, filed September 1880, issued December 1880 (with Alexander Bell)
- U.S. Patent 235,616 Process Of Treating Selenium To Increase Its Electric Conductivity, filed August 1880, issued December 1880 (with Alexander Bell)
- U.S. Patent 241,909 Photophonic Receiver, filed March 1881, issued May 1881 (with Alexander Bell)
- U.S. Patent 336,173 Telephone Transmitter (using a "jet of conductive fluid"), filed April 1885, issued February 1886
- U.S. Patent 341,212 Reproducing Sounds from Phonograph Records (without using a stylus), filed November 1885, issued May 1886 (with Alexander and Chichester Bell)
- U.S. Patent 341,213 Transmitting And Recording Sounds By Radiant Energy, filed November 1885, issued May 1886 (with Alexander and Chichester Bell)
- U.S. Patent 341,214 Recording and Reproducing Speech and Other Sounds (improvements include compliant cutting head, wax surface, and constant linear velocity disk), filed June 1885, issued May 1886 (with Chichester Bell)
- U.S. Patent 341,288 Apparatus for Recording and Reproducing Sounds (wax coated cylinder, pause and reverse mechanism), filed December 1885, issued May 1886
- U.S. Patent 374,133 Paper Cylinder for Graphophonic Records (helically wound), filed April 1887, issued November 1887
- U.S. Patent 375,579 Apparatus for Recording and Reproducing Speech and Other Sounds (with treadle drive designed for dictation), filed July 1887, issued December 1887
- U.S. Patent 380,535 Graphophone (with duplicate transcription), filed December 1887, issued April 1888
- U.S. Patent 421,450 Graphophone Tablet (hard "ozocerite" (carnauba wax) cylinder coating), filed November 1887, issued February 1890
- U.S. Patent 428,646 Machine for the Manufacture of Wax-coated Tablets for Graphophones (helically wound paper tubes), filed June 1889, issued May 1890
References
- ^ a b c d Schoenherr, Steven. Recording Technology History: Charles Sumner Tainter and the Graphophone, History Department of, University of San Diego, revised July 6, 2005. Retrieved from University of San Diego History Department website December 19, 2009.
- ^ a b c d Harding, Robert S. Charles Sumner Tainter Papers: 1878-1908 & 1919, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1984. Retrieved from National Museum of American History Archives Center website, December 19, 2009.
- ^ National Museum of American History. HistoryWired: A few of our favorite things: Alexander Graham Bell and the Graphophone, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Retrieved from the Smithsonian's HistoryWired.si.edu website, 17 December 2009.
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External links
- Charles Tainter and the Graphophone
- Plaque in Washington D.C. marking the successful Bell/Tainter photophone experiment
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