View source for Victor Talking Machine Company

{{Distinguish|Japan Victor Company}} {{Short description|Former American record and phonograph manufacturer}}
{{Redirect|Victrola}}
{{More footnotes needed|date=February 2022}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2016}}
{{Infobox record label <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Music -->
| name          = Victor Talking Machine Company
| image         =  His Master's Voice.jpg
| image_size    = <!-- size -->
| caption       = "[[His Master's Voice]]" logo with [[Nipper]]
| parent        = <!-- parent company, such as "[[Warner Music Group]]" -->
| founded       = {{Start date and age|1901}}
| founder       =  [[Eldridge R. Johnson]], [[Emile Berliner]]
| status        = Acquired by [[RCA]] in 1929; known today as RCA Records
| distributor   = <!-- distributors, separate with commas or <br /> -->
| genre         = Classical, blues, popular, jazz, country, bluegrass, folk
| country       = United States
| location      = [[Camden, New Jersey]]
}}
The '''Victor Talking Machine Company''' was an American recording company and [[phonograph]] manufacturer, incorporated in 1901. Victor was an independent enterprise until 1929 when it was purchased by the [[Radio Corporation of America]] (RCA) and became the  '''RCA Victor''' Division of the Radio Corporation of America until late 1968, when it was renamed [[RCA Records]].

Established in [[Camden, New Jersey]], Victor was the largest and most prestigious firm of its kind in the world, best known for its use of the iconic "[[His Master's Voice]]" trademark, the design,  production and marketing of the popular "Victrola" line of phonographs and the company's extensive catalog of operatic and classical music recordings by world famous artists on the prestigious [[RCA Victor Red Seal|Red Seal]] label. After Victor merged with RCA in 1929, the company maintained its eminence as America's foremost producer of records and phonographs until the 1960s.

== History ==
In 1896, [[Emile Berliner]], the inventor of the [[Phonograph|gramophone]] and disc record, contracted [[Eldridge R. Johnson]], owner of a small machine shop in [[Camden, New Jersey]], to manufacture a spring-driven motor for the gramophone. Johnson immediately became fascinated with the gramophone, and over the next several years developed a number of improvements for it and the process of disc recording. In 1900, Johnson formed the Consolidated Talking Machine Company of Philadelphia which, after lengthy and complex patent litigations, was reorganized in 1901 as the Victor Talking Machine Company in Camden, New Jersey.<ref name="gelatt">Gelatt, Roland, ''The Fabulous Phonograph: 1877–1977'', MacMillan, New York, 1954. {{ISBN|0-02-542960-4}}</ref>

=== Name ===
There are different accounts as to how the "Victor" name came about. RCA historian Fred Barnum<ref>{{cite web |title=Preserving the History of RCA Victor |url=http://historiccamdencounty.com/ccnews110.shtml |access-date=10 January 2018 |website=Historiccamdencounty.com}}</ref> gives various possible origins of the name. In ''"His Master's Voice" In America'' he writes, "One story claims that Johnson considered his first improved Gramophone to be both a scientific and business 'victory.' A second account is that Johnson emerged as the 'Victor' in 1901, from the long and costly litigations involving Berliner's gramophone patents and Frank Seaman's [[Zonophone]]. A third story is that Johnson's partner, [[Leon Douglass]], derived the word from his wife's name 'Victoria.' Finally, a fourth story is that Johnson took the name from the popular 'Victor' bicycle, which he had admired for its superior engineering. Of these four accounts, the first two are the most generally accepted."<ref name="HMVIA">Barnum, Fred, "'His Master's Voice' In America", General Electric Co, 1991. {{ISBN|0939766167}}, {{ISBN|978-0939766161}}</ref>  The first use of the Victor name was on a letterhead dated March 28, 1901.<ref>The Talking Machine Review International, Ernie Bayly © 1973 The Gramophone Company Limited</ref>

==== Marketing ====
[[File:Grammofono - Victor IV - Museo scienza e tecnologia Milano.jpg|thumb|Victor IV gramophone. [[Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci]], Milan.]]
Herbert Rose Barraud's deceased brother, a London photographer, willed him his estate, including his DC-powered Edison-Bell cylinder phonograph with a case of cylinders, and his dog, named [[Nipper]]. Barraud's original painting depicts Nipper peering quizzically into the horn of an Edison-Bell phonograph.  Barraud titled the painting "His Master's Voice". The horn on the Edison-Bell machine was black, and after a failed attempt at selling the painting to a cylinder record supplier of Edison Phonographs in the UK, it was suggested to Barraud that the painting might be brightened up (and possibly made more marketable) by substituting one of the brass-belled horns on display in the window at the new gramophone shop on [[Maiden Lane (London)|Maiden Lane]]. The [[Gramophone Company]] in London was founded and managed by an American, William Barry Owen.  One day in 1899, Barraud paid a visit to the shop with a photograph of the painting and asked to borrow a brass horn. Owen lent Barraud a horn and asked him to bring along his painting when he returned it. When Owen was shown the canvas a few days later, he offered to buy it if Barraud would paint out the cylinder machine and substitute a disc Gramophone. Barraud agreed to modify the canvas but he did not completely eradicate all remnants of his original brushwork. On close inspection of the painting, the contours of the Edison-Bell phonograph are visible beneath the paint of the gramophone. Emile Berliner acquired a United States copyright for the picture in 1900 and Eldridge Johnson adopted the Nipper/"His Master's Voice"  trademark for use by Consolidated and the following year, for Victor.<ref name="gelatt" />

In 1915, the "His Master's Voice" logo was rendered in immense circular leaded-glass windows in the tower of the [[Nipper Building|Victrola cabinet building]] at Victor's headquarters in Camden, New Jersey. The building still stands today with replica windows installed during [[RCA]]'s ownership of the plant in its later years. Today, one of the original windows is located at the Smithsonian museum in Washington, D.C.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://historiccamdencounty.com/ccnews158.shtml|title=RCA Nipper Window on Display at Rutgers|website=Historiccamdencounty.com |first1=Hoag |last1=Levins |date=January 2013 |access-date=10 January 2018}}</ref>

=== Acoustical recording era (1901–1925) ===
[[File:Caruso with phonograph2.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|[[Enrico Caruso]] with a customized Victrola given to him as a wedding gift by the Victor Company in 1918]]
In the company's early years, Victor issued recordings on the Victor, Monarch and De Luxe labels, with the Victor label on 7-inch records, Monarch on 10-inch records and De Luxe on 12-inch records. De Luxe Special 14-inch records were briefly marketed in 1903–1904. In 1905, all labels and sizes were consolidated into the Victor imprint.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mainspringpress.com/victor1.html|title=VICTOR 78 RECORDS: Evolution of the Victor Talking Machine Company record labels|website=Mainspring Press|access-date=10 January 2018 |archive-date=11 January 2018 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180111165117/http://www.mainspringpress.com/victor1.html }}</ref>

[[File:VictorTalkingMachine2008.jpg|thumb|right|A Victor Talking Machine]]
Victor recorded the first jazz and blues records ever issued. The Victor Military Band recorded the first recorded blues song, "[[The Memphis Blues]]", on July 15, 1914, in Camden, New Jersey.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/1000002984/B-15065-The_Memphis_blues|title=Victor matrix B-15065. The Memphis blues / Victor Military Band |website=Discography of American Historical Recordings|access-date=January 10, 2018}}</ref> In 1917, [[The Original Dixieland Jazz Band]] recorded "[[Livery Stable Blues]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/700004406/B-19331-Livery_stable_blues|title=Victor matrix B-19331. Livery stable blues / Original Dixieland Jazz Band |website=Discography of American Historical Recordings|access-date=January 10, 2018}}</ref>

=== Electrical recording era and acquisition by RCA (1925–1929) ===
[[File:Victor22529A.jpg|thumb|Victor "scroll" label used from 1926 to 1934, featuring the company's house band directed by [[Nathaniel Shilkret]]]]
In the early 1920s, the advent of radio as a home entertainment medium presented Victor and the entire record industry with new challenges. Not only was music becoming available over the air free of charge, but live radio broadcasts using high-quality microphones and heard over amplified receivers provided sound that was startlingly more clear and realistic than any contemporary phonograph record. Eldridge Johnson and Victor's senior executives were initially dismissive of the encroachments of radio, but after plummeting sales and their apathy and resistance of radio and electrical recording brought the company to the brink of bankruptcy in 1925, Victor switched from the acoustical or mechanical method of recording to the new [[microphone]]-based electrical system developed by [[Western Electric]]. Victor called its version of the improved fidelity recording process "Orthophonic", and marketed a new line of phonographs referred to as "[[Victor Orthophonic Victrola|Orthophonic Victrolas]]", scientifically developed by Western Electric to play these new records. Victor's first electrical recordings, issued in the spring of 1925 were not advertised as such; in order to create an extensive catalog of records made by the new process to satisfy anticipated demand, and to allow dealers time to liquidate their stocks of old-style Victrolas, Victor and its longtime rival, [[Columbia Records]], agreed to keep electrical recording secret until the autumn of 1925. Then, with the company's largest advertising campaign to date, Victor publicly announced the new technology and introduced its new records and the Orthophonic Victrola on November 2, 1925, dubbed "Victor Day".<ref name=gelatt/>

[[File:Victor VE in circle.jpg|thumb|The "VE" symbol, indicating a Victor electrical recording]]
Victor's first commercial electrical recording was made at the company's Camden, New Jersey studios on February 26, 1925. A group of eight popular Victor artists, [[Billy Murray (singer)|Billy Murray]], Frank Banta, [[Henry Burr]], Albert Campbell, [[Frank Croxton]], John Meyer, [[Monroe Silver]], and [[Rudy Wiedoeft]] gathered to record "A Miniature Concert". Several takes were recorded by the old acoustical process, then additional takes were recorded electrically for test purposes. The electrical recordings turned out well, and Victor issued the results that summer as the two sides of twelve inch 78&nbsp;rpm disc, Victor 35753. Victor's first electrical recording to be ''issued'' was Victor 19626, a ten-inch record consisting of two numbers recorded on March 16, 1925, from the [[University of Pennsylvania]]'s thirty-seventh annual production of the Mask and Wig Club, released in April, 1925. On March 21, 1925, Victor recorded its first electrical [[RCA Victor Red Seal|Red Seal]] disc, twelve inch 6502 by French pianist [[Alfred Cortot]], of works by Chopin and Schubert.<ref name=victorlog1>Victor Recording Book log, pp. 4761 and 4761A.</ref>

In 1926, Johnson sold his controlling (but not holding) interest in the Victor Company  to the banking firms of [[J. & W. Seligman & Co.|JW Seligman]] and [[Speyer & Co.]], who in turn sold Victor to the [[Radio Corporation of America]] in 1929.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/sellingsoundscom00suis |url-access=registration |quote=jw seligman victor talking machines. |title=Selling Sounds|last=Suisman|first=David|date=May 31, 2009 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-03337-5|location=[[Cambridge, MA]] and [[London]], England|pages=[https://archive.org/details/sellingsoundscom00suis/page/268 268]|language=en}}</ref>

== List of Victor Records artists ==
{{main article|List of Victor Records artists}}

== Archives ==
The [[Discography of American Historical Recordings]] (DAHR) is a continuation of the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (EDVR) project by Ted Fagan and William Moran to make a complete discography of all Victor recordings as well as adding the recordings of Columbia, Brunswick and other historic American labels now controlled by [[Sony Music Entertainment]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/|title=Discography of American Historical Recordings |website=UCSB Library |access-date=10 January 2018}}</ref> The Victor archive files are the main source of information for this project.

In 2011, the [[Library of Congress]] and Victor catalog owner Sony Music Entertainment launched the National Jukebox offering streaming audio of more than 10,000 pre-1925 recorded works for listening by the general public; the majority of these recordings have not been widely available for over 100 years.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-buzz/post/library-of-congress-sony-launch-streaming-national-jukebox/2011/05/10/AFJ4cJjG_blog.html |url-access=subscription |date=May 10, 2011 |first1=Justin |last1=Jouvenal |title=Library of Congress, Sony launch streaming 'National Jukebox'|newspaper=Washington Post|access-date=10 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402123204/https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-buzz/post/library-of-congress-sony-launch-streaming-national-jukebox/2011/05/10/AFJ4cJjG_blog.html|archive-date=2 April 2015|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/jukebox/about|title=About the National Jukebox |publisher=Library of Congress|access-date=10 January 2018 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180110102801/https://www.loc.gov/jukebox/about |archive-date=10 January 2018 }}</ref>

== See also ==
* {{annotated link|Eldridge R. Johnson}}
* {{annotated link|Grammy Award}}
* {{annotated link|His Master's Voice}}
* {{annotated link|Johnson Victrola Museum}}
* [[List of phonograph manufacturers]]
* {{annotated link|Nipper}}
* {{annotated link|RCA Camden}}
* {{annotated link|RCA Records}}
* {{annotated link|RCA Red Seal}}
* {{annotated link|RCA Victrola}}

== Further reading ==
* Bryan, Martin F. ''Report to the Phonothèque Québécoise on the Search for Archival Documents of Berliner Gram-O-Phone Co., Victor Talking Machine Co., R.C.A. Victor Co. (Montréal), 1899–1972''. Further augmented ed. Montréal: Phonothèque Québécoise, 1994. 19, [1] p.

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
{{Commons category}}
* Victor masters in the [https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/index?Matrix%5BCompany%5D=Victor Discography of American Historical Recordings]
* [http://www.victor-victrola.com/8-1.htm "Victrola Credenza" at Victor-Victrola page]
* [http://www.victor-victrola.com/Identification.htm "Identifying Victor Products" at Victor-Victrola page]
* [https://cheappaperwriting.com/davidsarnoff/ RCA Corporation Heritage Impact - CheapPaperWriting.com]
* [https://findingaids.hagley.org/repositories/3/resources/955 RCA Corporation records at Hagley Museum and Library] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190616165348/https://findingaids.hagley.org/xtf/view?docId=ead%2F2069.xml |date=June 16, 2019 }} (1887–1983) About the history of RCA and Victor
* [https://findingaids.hagley.org/repositories/2/resources/366 RCA Corporation photos at Hagley Museum] (1878–1960)
* [https://archive.org/details/georgeblood?and%5B%5D=publisher:victor%20NOT%20rca Victor Records] on the Internet Archive's [https://great78.archive.org/ Great 78 Project]
* [https://alephnull.net/20s/victrola/victrola.html ''Instructions for the setting up, operation & care of The Victrola, Spring Type''], Victor Talking Machine Company, Camden, NJ., c. 1924. (from [https://alephnull.net/20s/victrola.html ''The Roaring 20's Victrola page])

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Victor Records|*]]
[[Category:RCA Records]]
[[Category:Record labels based in New Jersey]]
[[Category:American jazz record labels]]
[[Category:Record labels established in 1901]]
[[Category:Record labels disestablished in 1929]]
[[Category:Defunct companies based in New Jersey]]
[[Category:Former components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average]]
[[Category:Companies based in Camden, New Jersey]]
[[Category:Mass media in Camden, New Jersey]]