The world’s first jukebox is installed at a bar in San Francisco - November 23rd, 1889

On this day in 1889, an early forerunner of the modern jukebox was installed for public use at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco, California.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that strives to know at least a little

(00:20):
bit more history every day. I'm Gabe Lousier, and today
we're looking at the origins of the juke box, a
vital part of music history that's just as fun to
look at as it is to listen to. The day

(00:43):
was November nine. An early fore runner of the modern
juke box was installed for public use at the Palais
Royale Saloon in San Francisco, California. The name jukebox wouldn't
be applied for another thirty years or so. When it

(01:03):
was invented, it was known as a nickel in the
slot player. It may have looked drastically different from what
we now know as a jukebox, but its purpose was
about the same. It allowed people to listen to music
in a bar or restaurant without the added cost of
live performers. The first nickel in the slot was invented

(01:26):
by Louis Glass and William Arnold, who both worked at
the Pacific Phonograph Company in San Francisco. They realized that
although the phonograph had captured the public's attention since its
creation in eighteen seventy seven, the machine was still too
expensive for most people to afford, so in an effort

(01:47):
to bring music to the people and to make some
money in the process, Glass and Arnold decided to rig
up a coin operated device that would allow people to
listen to a recording without how having to buy their own.
To be fair, other inventors were working on similar machines
around that same time, but Glass and Arnold were the

(02:10):
first to unveil a functioning version to the public. The
first model they built consisted of an Edison class M
electric phonograph housed inside an oak cabinet with a coin
slot mechanism attached. So far so jukebox. But here's where
things start to differ. The first machine had no speakers

(02:33):
or amplifiers. Instead, it had four tube like listening devices
connected to the phonograph. It's a little hard to describe,
but if you picture four stethoscopes attached to a big
wooden box, you're not far off. Each of those four
tubes functioned independently, meaning that up to four people could

(02:55):
listen to the same song simultaneously, provided that each of
them paid their own nickel. Also, for any germaphobes out there,
you'll be thrilled to know that patrons were supplied with
towels so they could wipe off the ends of their
tubes before or after each listen. Another difference from later
juke boxes was the amount of songs on offer. Modern

(03:19):
juke boxes have many, while the first jukebox had one.
The single song was housed on a wax cylinder inside
the cabinet, which could be swapped out periodically to give
customers something new to listen to. Glass and Arnold got
permission to display their first machine in a saloon just

(03:39):
two blocks away from their offices at the Phonograph Company. Unfortunately,
there's no record of which song was played first, so
we'll have to use our imaginations on that. Despite its limitations,
the coin operated phonograph took off overnight. Within six months,
that single player had earned over a thousand dollars the

(04:02):
equivalent of more than thirty thousand dollars today, and by
the end of the first year, Glass and Arnold had
installed another fifteen machines and raked in more than four
thousand dollars. The instant success inspired countless imitators to whip
up their own versions all across the country. Soon there

(04:23):
were entire phonograph parlors with multiple nickel in the slot players,
so customers could listen to different songs in the same location.
As the machine grew in popularity over the next decade
and a half, improvements were gradually made to the initial design.
The sound quality improved when disc records replaced the old

(04:46):
phonograph cylinders, and the addition of amplifiers allowed large groups
to listen simultaneously without the need to hold stethoscopes to
their ears. The next major innovation came in nineteen o
five when Chicago based inventor John Gable debuted the Automatic Entertainer,

(05:06):
a coin operated disc playing phonograph that featured twenty four
songs to choose from, though the discs still had to
be selected manually. Thirteen years later, another inventor, Hobart knee Black,
created a part that could change records automatically, leading to
the debut of the first selective juke boxes in the

(05:29):
nineteen twenties. That decade presented a challenge to automatic phonographs
due to the emerging technology of radio record sales and
jukebox usage took a dive when people realized they could
hear music for free on the radio. The hard times
kept on coming in the nineteen thirties, when the Great

(05:49):
Depression left most families with little money for recreation, even
just the nickel. However, once the depression ended, juke boxes
bounced right back, more popular than ever in a country
that was itching to get out and dance again. It
was around this time that the automatic phonograph finally started

(06:11):
to look like a jukebox. The big four companies in
the industry were Ami, rock, Ola, sea Berg, and Wurlitzer.
These manufacturers introduced now classic jukebox features such as flashy
light up displays and numbered and lettered buttons that were

(06:31):
used to select specific songs. The machines now had their
familiar shapes and features, but it was still a few
years before they would actually be called juke boxes. The
term originated in the Southern United States sometime in the
late nineteen thirties. It was based on the term juke joint,

(06:52):
which was regional slang for a rowdy bar or dance
hall with lots of loud music. The word juke comes
from the Creole language and is an adjective that means wild, bad,
or wicked. Once the name was set, juke boxes entered
a golden age, with their peak popularity running from the

(07:13):
nineteen forties through the mid nineteen sixties. In fact, by nine,
seventy five percent of all the records produced annually in
the United States were put into juke boxes. The radio
shook things up again in the nineteen fifties, when the
invention of the transistor introduced the world to the joys

(07:34):
of portable music. Jukebox sales and usage began to slide
from there, but they remained staple fixtures in plenty of diners, bars,
and restaurants. Today you can still find working vintage jukeboxes
and many of those same locations, and new models are
still produced and used as well. Most of the ones

(07:56):
made in the past few decades play songs either from
C E D s or digital files, but they still
look a lot like the ones from the nineteen fifties,
complete with domed tops, shiny chrome candy colored light bars,
and if you're really lucky, those tubes of little bubbles
they run up and down the sides. With that much

(08:18):
to look at, it doesn't really matter which song is playing. Well,
almost I'm gay bluesier, and hopefully you now know a
little more about history today than you did yesterday. You
can learn even more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at t d I HC Show, And if

(08:41):
you'd like to share your favorite jukebox selection, you can
write to me at this day at I heart media
dot com. My own favorite is J seventeen. Can't get
enough of that one. Thanks to Chandler May's for producing
the show, and thank you for listening. I'll see you
back here her again tomorrow for another Day in History class.

(09:10):
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.