Owen gave Barraud an entire gramophone and asked him to paint it into the picture, offering to buy the result. Barraud paid a visit with a photograph of the painting and asked to borrow a horn. The Gramophone Company in London was founded and managed by an American, William Barry Owen. 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, a friend of Barraud's suggested that the painting could 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. Barraud's original painting depicts Nipper staring intently into the horn of an Edison-Bell while both sit on a polished wooden surface. 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. Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Milan. Of these four accounts, the first two are the most generally accepted." The first use of the Victor title on a letterhead, on March 28, 1901, nine weeks after the death of British Queen Victoria. 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. RCA historian Fred Barnum 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' from the lengthy and costly patent litigations involving Berliner and Frank Seaman's Zonophone. There are different accounts as to how the "Victor" name came about. In 1896, Emile Berliner, the inventor of the gramophone and disc record, contracted machinist Eldridge R. After Victor merged with RCA in 1929, the company maintained its eminence as America's foremost producer of records and phonographs until the 1960s. Headquartered in Camden, New Jersey, Victor was the largest and most eminent firm of its kind in the world, best known for its use of the iconic " His Master's Voice" trademark, the production, marketing, and design 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 Red Seal label. The company operated independently until it was purchased by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1929 and subsequently operated as the RCA Victor Division of the Radio Corporation of America. The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer, incorporated in 1901. Dranoff returned the site to its former glory, preserving its proud heritage and giving its dynamic history the permanence and platform it so deserves.Acquired by RCA in 1929 known today as RCA RecordsĬlassical, blues, popular, jazz, country, bluegrass, folk The building had fallen into unfortunate disrepair after General Electric acquired RCA in 1986 and abandoned the site some years later. Its stellar streak continued when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin used backpack radios built at its Camden headquarters to announce their successful landing on the moon.ĭranoff Properties spearheaded the restoration of this treasured landmark-and, by extension, catalyzed the reactivation of the Camden waterfront-converting the former headquarters to 341 authentic industrial lofts with a remarkable renovation. A beacon of innovation, The Victor was the production site for Victrola gramophone cabinets-including the majestic Berkshire Breakfront on display in The Victor’s Cabinet Room, a pioneering product in home entertainment at the time of its release in 1948. Merging with the Radio Corporation of America in 1929 to form RCA Victor, the company cemented its reputation as a revolutionary in recorded sound. Imbued with over a century of illustrious history, The Victor was built in the early 1900s as the headquarters for the Victor Talking Machine Company.
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