If Dolls Could Speak: The Story Behind Thomas Edison’s Talking Doll
- Dillion Liskai
- Mar 31
- 5 min read
The artifact you see above, held by Madeleine Edison Sloane, the daughter of Thomas A. Edison and the first director of the Thomas A. Edison Birthplace, has generated more comments than nearly any other artifact in the Birthplace. Not even the room where Thomas was born has elicited as many remarks as this item. Upon exiting the parlor room of the Birthplace, guests enter the Exhibit Room, which showcases a selection of Thomas Edison’s 1,093 patents. In the bottom right corner of a glass case trimmed in wood stands a two-foot-tall porcelain doll. She wears a white dress and has a head full of flaxen hair, while her rosy cheeks contrast sharply with her brown shoes. She stands expressionless, with two dark wells for eyes that seem almost to follow you; if you look closely, you’ll even notice she has a complete row of teeth. She also possesses another distinctive feature: she can speak.
She sounds like something out of famous horror films like Annabelle, Child’s Play, or Dead Silence. However, there is no reason to fear this doll. The Edison Talking Doll, the first non-mechanical talking doll, is certainly one of Thomas Edison’s most intriguing inventions, but also one of his least successful. It created an entire market yet ultimately failed. To understand the paradox of the Edison Talking Doll, it’s crucial to grasp how it came to be.
Almost as soon as Thomas Edison created his favorite invention, the phonograph, in 1877, he wanted to use his technology, which could capture and play the human voice, in toys. In November of 1877, Edison wrote in his journal, “I propose to apply the phonograph principle to make dolls speak, sing, cry, and produce various sounds; I will also apply it to all kinds of toys such as dogs, animals, fowl, reptiles, and human figures, to cause them to make various sounds, to steam toy engines, and to imitate exhaust and whistles.”
Mr. Edison’s idea was not necessarily new for the time period. When Thomas wrote those words in his journal in 1877, talking dolls had existed for over fifty years. The first talking dolls date back to 1823, when the German inventor Johann Nepomuk Maelzel created a doll that could say two words: “maman” and “papa.” Maelzel’s doll used bellows and reeds to artificially reproduce human speech. What Thomas wanted to do with his talking doll was replace the bellows and reeds with real recordings. He proposed placing a small phonograph in the back of the doll that, once wound, would drop a needle onto a recording and play a real human voice reciting nursery rhymes. He aimed to replace the inhuman with the human.
Progress on the earliest talking dolls was slow for Mr. Edison. The tinfoil recordings he mastered with his first phonograph were not quite compatible with the dolls’ bodies. Edison began production on his first series of talking dolls as early as 1878 and set an initial limit of sixty words for the recordings. However, he quickly paused production and shelved the idea as he focused on his most famous invention, the incandescent bulb. Edison’s talking dolls would remain silent and shelved for almost a decade before he finally decided to revive his creation.
When he returned to the talking doll in the late 1880s, he replaced tinfoil as the main recording medium with wax. He experimented with movable jaws and mouths, but these ideas were ultimately abandoned in the final product. After continuous adjustments, Thomas Edison finally released his talking doll to the public in 1890. Initially, the voices reciting “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep” were men’s voices, some of which belonged to Thomas Edison himself. The concept of nursery rhymes being sung by a baby doll in an adult male’s voice was not well received by the public, which prompted Edison to remove himself and other men from the doll recordings. He then replaced them with a team of eighteen women who recorded a series of twelve nursery rhymes.
The voices of the Edison Talking Doll were certainly unappealing. They were not only shrill but also squeaky. The terrifying nature of the voice would only worsen if the person winding the phonograph at the back of the doll did not wind it all the way. The wax cylinders tended to wear down, causing many dolls to lose their voices entirely. Combine the nightmarish sounds with the unappealing looks, and it's clear how Thomas Edison faced challenges in selling his talking doll. The dolls were even harder to sell due to their high price. Undressed Edison Talking Dolls cost $10, while those with clothes required $20. Though this may not seem expensive, adjusting for inflation in 2024 reveals that an undressed doll would cost around $345, and a dressed one would be just under $700. Most people simply couldn't afford the Edison Talking Doll, and those who could often chose not to buy it. The Edison Phonograph Toy Manufacturing Company, which Edison established to spearhead the talking toy industry, was over $50,000 in debt and unable to secure a loan or attract an investor to keep Thomas’s dream alive.
Within weeks of releasing his talking doll to the public in 1890, Thomas Edison quickly halted production due to poor sales and negative publicity. An exceptionally brilliant idea had been undone by commercial failure. The Edison Phonograph Toy Manufacturing Company had produced thousands of talking dolls but was only able to sell a few hundred, leaving Edison with thousands of dolls that no one wanted. What he did with the remaining dolls remains a mystery and has become the subject of legends and myths. Some believe that Thomas sold the dolls without phonographs to the public, while others think he buried the talking dolls, which he nicknamed his “little talking monsters.”
While she may appear spooky, there is much to admire about Edison’s Talking Doll. Thomas Edison successfully brought a two-foot porcelain doll to life. It could speak and sing. If you had a doll or toy that could make noise while growing up, its existence is partly thanks to this porcelain predecessor crafted by Edison over 130 years ago. Edison’s Talking Doll cast a shadow much more significant than its two-foot frame, and without Thomas’s venture into the world of talking toys, who knows what our toys would look or sound like today? She was an experiment in a market that was not widely recognized. This doll represented a significant leap into the future of toys.
Sources Used and Encouraged for Further Reading
Dawson, Victoria. 2015. “The Epic Failure of Thomas Edison's Talking Doll.” Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/epic-failure-thomas-edisons-talking-doll-180955442/
Feaster, Patrick. 2015. “A Cultural History of the Edison Talking Doll Record - Thomas Edison National Historical Park (U.S.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/photosmultimedia/a-cultural-history-of-the-edison-talking-doll-record.htm#_edn1
Prairie Public Broadcasting. 2019. “Edison's Talking Dolls.” Prairie Public Newsroom. https://news.prairiepublic.org/main-street/2019-09-04/edisons-talking-dolls
Smithsonian National Museum of American History. n.d. “Edison Talking Doll.” Smithsonian Institution. Accessed October 9, 2024. https://www.si.edu/object/edison-talking-doll%3Anmah_1413900
Dillon Liskai, a native of Clyde, Ohio, is currently a junior at Bowling Green State University. He is pursuing a degree in Adolescent to Young Adult (AYA) Integrated Social Studies Education with a specialization in History.
For the past three years, Dillon has worked as a tour guide at the Thomas A. Edison Birthplace Museum. When not at school or the museum, he enjoys cheering on the Bowling Green Falcons, spending time with friends and family, and exploring local history.
Have a question for Dillon? Reach out via email at dliskai@tomedison.org!
Commentaires