Past Forward: This Machine Listened to “Dictators”

In 1907, the Columbia Graphophone Co., an outgrowth of Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Laboratory Association, trademarked “Dictaphone” for its mechanical dictation machines. As a “dictator,” you would speak into the tube, and a needle would trace the sound wave on a wax cylinder. The cylinder would then be handed off to a secretary for transcription. Typists used playback machines with foot pedals to control the speed of the recording and to reverse and repeat as necessary. The Dictaphone competed with Thomas Edison's Ediphone, which used similar technology. But the Dictaphone won in a sense, in that “dictaphone” is used generically to describe all dictation machines.