America on Record: A History of Recorded Sound - Andre Millard - Google Books

https://books.google.de/books?id=Tmx1064W5JwC&dq=album+history&hl=de&source=gbs_navlinks_s

With Thomas Edison's invention of the phonograph, the beautiful music that was the preserve of the wealthy became a mass-produced consumer good, cheap enough to be available to all. In 1877 Edison dreamed that one day there would be a talking machine in…