Park Emile-Berliner (1851-?). Inventeur du gramophone et du disque.
How did a tiny corner park in St-Henri end up dedicated to the inventor of the recording disk?
Afterall, German-born inventor Émile Berliner was living in Washington DC in 1888 when he figured out a revolutionary way of recording sound onto a flat disk. In 1893, Berliner’s company commercialized the Gramophone, entering into direct competition with the Phonograph, a cylindrical sound-recording device invented by Thomas Edison.
But in the early 1900ds, the firm that oversaw marketing for the Gramophone teamed up with Columbia Phonograph to build and sell the Zonophone – a cheap knock-off of Berliner’s patent. During the ensuing legal squabbles, the marketer managed to turn the tables against Berliner and an injunction was passed to prevent him from selling his machines in the US. He moved set up shop in Montreal because it was easily accessible by railroad.
In 1900, Berliner set up his offices and a retail store at 2315 St. Catherine St (the block that currently houses the AMC forum) and in 1901, he sold over 2 million records. At that time, records were one-sided with a picture of “Nipper,” the iconic dog listening to the gramophone, on the back. Manufacturing originally took place in a factory located on Aqueduct St, (now Lucien-L’Allier).
In 1904 he built a recording studio at 138A Peel Street and the first recording made in Canada was of French Canadian Joseph Saucier playing La Marseilleise.
In 1908, the factory moved to 1001 rue Lenoir and 1050 rue LaCasse in St-Henri. The latter currently houses the Musée des Ondes Emile Berliner, a museum dedicated to the history of the audio industry in Quebec (whose online bio of Berliner supplied most of the information in this post).
According to a variety of sources, Berliner died in 1929 in Washington DC, although the City of Montreal apparently remains unconvinced.
4 comments
this was a fun little museum we visited last year, although I heard there are two rooms and we only saw one room. the other holds some beliner artifacts. Or I could be completely wrong. anyway the history of audio/radio was extremely interesting for any history-of-geek types like myself.
Interesting. Also, the Wikipedia article makes no mention of him ever having set foot in Montreal (there’s a link to the Montreal museum, but nothing in the actual text).
I love the last sentence of the article haha. They probably needed concrete proof of his death, or they just didn’t check Wikipedia. Always check Wikipedia before doing anything :P
There are a number of photos of the Berliner gramophone works in the McCord Museum online photo archive, if anyone out there is curious.