This photograph shows the model Edison submitted with his patent application for the phonograph in 1877. The patent for the phonograph, one of more than a thousand awarded to Thomas Edison over his life, granted him the sole right to make, use, and sell his way of capturing sound on a cylinder covered with tin foil. Rival inventor Alexander Graham Bell would later improve on this technology, replacing the foil-covered cylinder with one made of wax. This resource is part of the Thomas Edison Collection.

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