


While studying the operations of the phonograph, Emile Berliner patented the first functional microphone. The phonograph utilized cylinders which were recorded and played back with a groove that was inscribed vertically. In 1876, Edison invented the very first system for the recording and playback of sound, called the phonograph. However, with the influence of Victor Talking Machine Company, Cooper Street came to be home for more blue collar workers.īefore the establishment of Victor Talking Machine Company in Camden as well as the invention of the disc record by the Philadelphia Gramophone Company’s founder Emile Berliner, the origin of reproduced sound can be traced to Thomas Edison. By the late nineteenth century, Cooper Street had been home to several commercial businesses as well as homes for the city’s lawyers, doctors, and business professionals. Cooper Street favored from this route, as goods and travelers moved through the street to board ferries and to cross the Delaware River.Īfter Victor Talking Machine Company arrived in Camden in 1896, it became an expanding manufacturing epicenter which required thousands of employees, which greatly influenced not only the city of Camden, but Cooper Street as well. Cooper Street was the final point of a route from the southern New Jersey coast to the Middle Ferry, which crossed the Delaware River from Camden to Philadelphia. The Camden waterfront, specifically Cooper Street, was in a unique position along the waterfront to benefit from several of the industrial hubs in the area including Victor Talking Machine Company, the New York Shipbuilding Company, and the Campbell’s Soup Company. Before the introduction of Victor Talking Machine Company to the Camden waterfront in 1896, the city of Camden went through a great population growth.
