Crossed Wires and Missing Connections: Valdemar Poulsen, The American Telegraphone Company, and the Failure to Commercialize Magnetic Recording

Mark Clark and Henry Nielsen

Business History Review, 1995, vol. 69, issue 1, 1-41

Abstract: The first magnetic recorder, the telegraphone, was invented in 1898 in Denmark. Despite favorable publicity and considerable investment, the telegraphone was a commercial failure. This article uses the theoretical concept of “frames of meaning” to explain that failure, focusing on three factors in particular: Denmark's status as a technologically peripheral country, the telephone orientation of the telegraphone's inventors, and management failures by the firm set up to manufacture the machine.

Date: 1995
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