The jukebox remains one of the most beloved symbols of midcentury America. If you have a coin in your pocket, you have the ticket to crafting a magical, musical memory, complete with tapping toes and a song on your lips.

A revolution in sound

At more than a century old, jukeboxes are just one in a long line of technological innovations that have moved the music industry forward since the Industrial Revolution. Their precursor, the phonograph, was invented by American inventor (and household name) Thomas Edison. The phonograph, which Edison patented in 1877, featured a recorded message etched onto the tiny indentations of a tin foil-covered cylinder, which was then played by turning a crank handle and allowing an attached needle to fall on each of the indentations to play the completed message. Nearly a decade later, inventor Alexander Graham Bell would later improve upon Edison’s invention by covering the cylinder in wax and using a floating stylus instead of a rigid needle. This device, which Bell named the graphophone, offered a clearer, cleaner sound.

In 1889, another inventor by the name of Louis Glass created a device considered to be the first type of jukebox, though it looked absolutely nothing like the jukeboxes we have come to recognize today. Glass’ creation was “large and clunky,” according to an article on the website for Victrola.

“Additionally, since a listener could only play one cylinder at a time, the music options were limited because each change was done manually,” according to the Victrola article. “To get the traditional jukebox to work in public spaces, it required inserting a token or coin to activate its operation, much like a vending machine. Though the sound quality was poor and the workings of the machine itself cumbersome and inconvenient, the novelty was enough to inspire other inventors to improve upon this original contraption.” 

Entertainment at the push of a button

The dawn of the 20th century saw those days of tedious disc changes end; by 1906, units like the “Automatic Entertainer” could play 24 different selections on 10-inch discs, according to the National Center for Families Learning’s education website Wonderopolis.org.

Individuals who rose to the challenge of improving upon the invention included Justice Seeburg – a Swedish immigrant whose company began producing jukeboxes in the mid-1920s — and the members of the Wurlitzer family, German immigrants whose company began making pianos and organs but who would become better known for their jukeboxes starting in the early 1930s.

These early 20th century jukeboxes not only allowed for speedy music changes and better sound; their design was appealing to the eye, too, with Seeburg unveiling one model that would become a game changer for its competitors.

It’s party time

Meanwhile, Wurlitzer jukeboxes sold especially well starting with the repeal of Prohibition in late 1933.

“The demand for coin-operated music was about to explode,” van Etten writes. “It did, and by 1937, Wurlitzer had sold over 100,000 phonographs.”

The industry would become inundated with manufacturers by the late 1930s, with companies like AMI, Mills, Rockola, Aireon, and Chicago Coin joining the fray. Like radio and television technologies, jukebox production grinded to a halt when the United States entered World War II, but when production resumed in the late 1940s, the numbers showed that their popularity was only growing – by the end of the decade, in fact, more than 75% of the records produced in the U.S. went into jukeboxes. The trio of Wurlitzer, Seeburg, and Rockola dominated the industry.