Phonograph Advertisements

 

A significant part of the phonograph's history is its advertising.

Phonograph ads, like any consumer ad, tell stories with a variety of themes and images to sell their products. But what was unique to phonograph ads was the number of ways that showed how recorded sound could change listeners relationships with music for all ages and for everyone in the family.

Most of this gallery are paper advertisements from magazines, newspapers, and phonograph companies' promotional material. Phonograph advertising was also seen in public places like billboards and signage, window displays, in-store listening booths, intermission movie slides, and moving pictures.

Home entertainment was being redefined. In the process the phonograph industry became a major advertiser promoting their machines, recorded music and the artists.

Select from the following advertising themes and period specific galleries or use the PhonoAds Table of Contents.

 

Pre -1900 Ads

1900 -1905 Ads

Edison's 1905 Double Service (1)

Artists Inside the Horn

     

 

"Looking for the Band"

1905 - 1910 Ads

"Which is which?"

"Both are..."

 

 

   

The Stage of the World

1915 - 1920 Ads

1920 - 1930 Ads

       

1930 - 1940 Ads

1940 - 1945 Ads

1945 - 1950 Ads

Post 1950 Ads

       

At Home or at the Opera

Shopping for a Phonograph

 

     

Happy Homes - Something for Everyone

 

 

   

Visions of Artists in the Home

An Age of Wonders!

       

Uncle Sam and the Phonograph

New Victor Records January 1919

January 1919 Phonograph Ads

     

 

Massani's "The Phonograph" Edison's "Old Couple"

"Clear as a Bell"

The Sonora Phonograph

       

Portable Phonographs

The Brownies and the Phonograph

     

"Advergraphs"

Slogans, Phrases and Logos

Nipper, Dogs and the Phonograph

       

Silhouette Ads - Edison

Victor Supremacy

       

Children's Phonographs and Popular Culture Characters

Keeping Fit with the Phonograph

Exercise to Music

       

The Immortal Voice - Promoting Columbia Phonograph Co., Rosa Ponselle and Opera

The Victor Book of the Opera

The Voice of the Violin - Promoting the Edison Diamond Disc

The 2015 Launch of Apple Music

       
       

Record Listening Booths

       

 

 

Appealing to the customer's 'human' side

 


 


See Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication (Chapter 12) for a history of advertising and some context for phonograph advertisements at the end of the 19th and throughout the 20th century. (University of Minnesota's Library of Publishing).

 

 


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