National Park Service Museum Centennial

Model of Tinfoil Phonograph

Experimental Model of Tinfoil Phonograph, Original 1877 Designed by Thomas A. Edison Made by John Kruesi, at Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory in New Jersey Instrument: 31.0 x 36.0 x 10.5, cm Base: 29.5 x 27.0, cm EDIS 34 Edison National Historic Site Photo credit: Leonard DeGraaf, Edison National Historic Site	Link to Park Home Page Link to Park collection data All Park Collection Information
In 1880, Thomas Edison gave the original tinfoil phonograph to the South Kensington Patent Office Museum (now the British Science Museum). The museum returned the phonograph to Edison in 1926, and it is now part of the museum collection at Edison National Historic Site. Edison successfully recorded and reproduced on this phonograph the nursery rhyme "Mary had a little lamb ..."