The phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison with help from his other inventions, the telegraph and the telephone, Edison had a mechanic, John Kruesi who helped Edison build the phonograph. Edison created the phonograph in 1877 with also the help of a Phonautograph that was invented by the french inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville.
Edison, had a lot of goals in mind, he first visioned the creation to be used as a tool for business applications to be used as a source of recording messages, letters, and even telegraphs. After working on the phonograph for awhile he realised that it could be used as a broader source for communication and entertainment for the whole world to use. Edison's goal with the phonograph was to be able to record and playback sounds; he achieved this by using a stylus to record sound waves on a rotating cylinder.
The phonograph was invented because Edison was inspired by the human ear and the ideology that sounds can be mechanically recorded and produced. At first when the phonograph was invented Edison lost interest in the development with the device once the public lost interest in the initial invention. This helped Edison with stepping away for awhile and make improvements to the sound of the phonograph for a few years before coming out with a revised version of the creation.
He was attempting to find a way to record and reproduce telephone messages. The invention of the phonograph changed the world in many ways just how Thomas Edison visioned it, some reasons how the invention changed the world is that it allowed people to record and playback sound which revolutionized how people can experience music and audio technology. This use of technology also allowed people to conduct research in fields such as musicology, ethnology, and anthropology. This was not Edison's goal of the invention but this is another reason why the invention changed and revolutionized the world and helped with the creations of future inventions.
The phonograph solved the problem of not being able to permanently capture and replaying sound. This allowed people to listen to recorded music essentially whenever they want to. Not only did this allow people to listen when they want, the creation helped with communication and documentation for businesses. It had the potential to be used a tool to help improving communication, Edison's original thought was that it can be used as tool to keep historical speeches. Afterall, the creation of the phonograph revolutionized how we listen to music, after the creation of the phonograph, within a few years entrepreneurs started putting phonograph recordings into coin slot machines on city streets where passerby’s can listen to songs, monologues and much more. They were an instant hit and brought in nearly hundred dollars weekly. though it was started as a relatively simple mechanical device just how Edison visioned the phonograph, it lead to becoming a cornerstone of the music industry that influenced the development of recorded sound and entertainment for decades to come.
