Later in his career Tainter was associated with the International Graphopone Company of West Virginia,[2] and also managed his own research and development laboratory, earning him the title: 'Father Of The Talking Machine' (i.e.: father of the phonograph).[3]
During this time, Tainter worked with the Bells on several inventions, amongst them thephotophone andphonograph, which they developed into theGraphophone, a substantial improvement of Edison's earlier device, for which Tainter received several patents along with the Bells.[1] Edison subsequently sued theVolta Graphophone Company (of which Tainter was part owner) forpatent infringement, but the case was settled by a compromise between the two.[3]
Tainter in 1919
In 1886, he married Lila R. Munro,[3] and over the next years worked in Washington, perfecting his graphophone and founding a company trying to market the Graphophone as a dictation machine: the firstDictaphone. In 1887 Tainter invented thehelically wound paper tube as an improved graphophone cylinder. This design was light and strong, and came to be widely used in applications far removed from its original intent, such as mailing tubes and product containers.
In 1888 he was stricken with severepneumonia, which would incapacitate him intermittently for the rest of his life,[3] leading him and his wife to move toSan Diego, California in 1903. After the death of his first wife in 1924, he married Laura F. Onderdonk in 1928.Tainter received several distinguished awards for his graphophone.[3]
In 1947 Tainter's widow, Laura Fontaine Onderdonk,[5] donated a number of Sumner Tainter's unpublished writings, including the survivingHome Notebooks, to theSmithsonian Institution'sNational Museum of American History.[1][3][6] TheHome Notebooks contain daily agendas describing in detail the project work Tainter conducted at the Volta Laboratory during the 1880s.[3][7] In 1950 Laura Tainter donated other historical items, including Sumner Tainter's manuscripts of"Memoirs of Charles Sumner Tainter", the first 71 pages of which detailed his experiences up to 1887, plus further writings on his work at the Graphophone factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
U.S. patent 235,496Photophone Transmitter, filed September 1880, issued December 1880 (with Alexander Bell)
U.S. patent 235,497Selenium Cell, filed September 1880, issued December 1880 (with Alexander Bell)
U.S. patent 235,616Process of Treating Selenium To Increase Its Electric Conductivity, filed August 1880, issued December 1880 (with Alexander Bell)
U.S. patent 241,909Photophonic Receiver, filed March 1881, issued May 1881 (with Alexander Bell)
U.S. patent 336,173Telephone Transmitter (using a "jet of conductive fluid"), filed April 1885, issued February 1886
U.S. patent 341,212Reproducing Sounds from Phonograph Records (without using a stylus), filed November 1885, issued May 1886 (with Alexander and Chichester Bell)
U.S. patent 341,213Transmitting And Recording Sounds By Radiant Energy, filed November 1885, issued May 1886 (with Alexander and Chichester Bell)
U.S. patent 341,214Recording and Reproducing Speech and Other Sounds (improvements include compliant cutting head, wax surface, andconstant linear velocity disk), filed June 1885, issued May 1886 (with Chichester Bell)
U.S. patent 341,288Apparatus for Recording and Reproducing Sounds (wax coated cylinder, pause and reverse mechanism), filed December 1885, issued May 1886
U.S. patent 374,133Paper Cylinder for Graphophonic Records (helically wound), filed April 1887, issued November 1887
U.S. patent 375,579Apparatus for Recording and Reproducing Speech and Other Sounds (withtreadle drive designed fordictation), filed July 1887, issued December 1887
U.S. patent 380,535Graphophone (with duplicate transcription), filed December 1887, issued April 1888
U.S. patent 421,450Graphophone Tablet (hard "ozocerite" (carnauba wax) cylinder coating), filed November 1887, issued February 1890
U.S. patent 428,646Machine for the Manufacture of Wax-coated Tablets for Graphophones (helically wound paper tubes), filed June 1889, issued May 1890
