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(c) 2019 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Victor Talking Machine Company
(c) 2019 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
(c) 2019 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Victor Talking Machine Company

active Camden, New Jersey, 1901 - 1929
BiographyThe Victor Talking Machine Company was an American record company and phonograph manufacturer headquartered in Camden, New Jersey.

The company was founded by engineer Eldridge R. Johnson, who had previously made gramophones to play Emile Berliner's disc records.[1] After a series of legal wranglings between Berliner, Johnson and their former business partners, the two joined to form the Consolidated Talking Machine Co. in order to combine the patents for the record with Johnson's patents improving its fidelity. Victor Talking Machine Co. was incorporated officially in 1901 shortly before agreeing to allow Columbia Records use of its disc record patent.

In 1926, Johnson sold his controlling (but not holding) interest in the Victor Company to the banking firms of JW Seligman and Spyer & Co, who in turn sold Victor to the Radio Corporation of America in 1929.[10] It then became known briefly as the Radio-Victor Division of the Radio Corporation of America, then the RCA Manufacturing Company, the RCA Victor Division and in 1968, RCA Records. Most record labels continued to bear only the "Victor" name until 1946, when the labels changed to "RCA Victor" and eventually, to simply "RCA" in late 1968, "Victor" becoming the label designation for RCA's popular music releases. (See RCA and RCA Records for later history of the Victor brand name.)

From Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Talking_Machine_Company accessed 7/23/19 M Phelps
Person TypeInstitution
Last Updated8/7/24
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