Existing comment:
1890: A Doll That Talks:
"Edison's phonograph doll. The greatest wonder of the age. A French jointed doll, reciting in a childish voice one of a number of well-known nursery rhymes."
-- Advertisement for Schwarz's Toy Bazaar, 1890
One of Edison's first attempts to market the phonograph was as a simple novelty to amuse children. Charles Batchelor, an Edison employee, with two daughters of his own, suggested this idea.
A tiny wax cylinder phonograph inside his "talking doll" played a childlike voice reciting nursery rhymes -- or at least it was supposed to. Over 3,000 of the toys were manufactured at Edison Phonograph Works. But the fragile mechanisms broke too easily for commercial success, and Edison ultimately shut down the operation, later admitting that "the voices of the little monsters were exceedingly unpleasant to hear."
Edison's talking doll featured a bisque head imported from Germany. Wooden hands and feet were attached to a heavy metal body that held the phonograph mechanism. By turning a crank in the doll's back, a child could make the doll talk. |