Edison Silhouette
Ads
By Doug Boilesen, 2020
Edison used silhouettes
in 1906 and 1907 in advertisements telling stories of the phonograph
providing home entertainment befitting a king; entertaining and
thereby keeping the man of the house at home; and even John Philip
Sousa admitting (according to Edison) that "people will no
longer go to concerts if they can have music in their own homes
so easily and as cheaply as they can with the Edison Phonograph."
It was Sousa, of course, who in April 1906 had called phonograph
music "canned music" in his Appleton's Magazine
article "The Menace of Mechanical Music").
Silhouettes had been
a popular art form in the United States during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries.
The following Edison
phonograph advertisements are examples of "silhouttes"
in popular culture featuring black cut-out images on white paper.
Edison Ad, Ainslee's
Magazine, 1900 (PM-0938)
The Red Book, 1906 (PM-0949)
Edison ad, December 1906
The Edison Phonograph Monthly,
Edison ads for January 1907
The Edison Phonograph
Monthly, Edison ads for February 1907
The Ladie's Home Journal,
February 1907, p. 59
The National Magazine,
Edison Phonographs, National Phonograph Company, 1907 (Disclaimer)
"Round the horn
with Edison, a delightful voyage --
sail into our Phonograph department and hear the latest records."
Edison ad by local jobber
as seen in The Edison Phonograph Monthly, March 1907
Advertisement by Iver
Johnson's Sporting Goods Co., 163 Washington St.
System Magazine,
1909
