During the Second Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s, the production and manufacturing of mass goods began to expand rapidly. These changes were also accompanied by a shift in fuel sources, which began to shift toward more modern forms such as oil and electricity. With these changes in production and power, new possibilities and ideas emerged. Many great thinkers have invested in technological advancement by taking advantage of the changes brought about by the Second Industrial Revolution. Thomas Edison became one of America's greatest inventors during this time. While working on a way to record telegraph messages using indentations on paper, Thomas Edison had the idea that telephone conversations could be recorded in the same way. On November 21, 1877, Thomas Edison publicly announced that he had invented a device capable of recording sound: the phonograph. This invention would have had a major impact worldwide at the time and to this day is the foundation of not only recorded telephone messages, but all forms of recorded audio. What led to the invention of the phonograph? Thomas Edison had many inventions and patents at the time, including the automatic telegraph. Edison began work on a machine that could store telegraph messages. His idea was to store these massages on paper in the form of a series of indentations. Later, these stored telegraphic messages could then be sent telegraphically again. However, during Edison's work improving the telegraph, he noticed that introducing paper into the telegraph produced a sound resembling a human voice. As Edison said, “There is no doubt that I will be able to store and reproduce the human voice automatically and perfectly at any time.” Edison gave his mechanism...... middle of paper ...... series of indentations on a form of physical media. By creating the phonograph, Edison left a major impact on the entire way we experience entertainment and communicate. By establishing the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company on January 24, 1878, he was also responsible for laying the foundation of the audio recording industry. Edison's phonograph was able to reach many more people than would be possible with in-person lectures and performances. Musical recordings would serve to bridge gaps between people at a time when financial and ethnic differences further separated the population. Today, we still benefit from the foundations laid by the phonograph. We can easily listen to all forms of audio from around the world, and with the advent of the Third Industrial Revolution and the Internet, recorded audio is connecting people around the world more than ever before..