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The History of the Jukebox

One of the early forerunners to the modern Jukebox as we know was the Nickel-in-the-Slot machine. In 1889, Louis Glass and William S. Arnold, placed a coin-operated Edison cylinder phonograph in the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. It was an Edison Class M Electric Phonograph in an oak cabinet that was refitted with a coin mechanism patented (U.S. 428,750) by Glass and Arnold. This was the first Nickel-in-the-Slot. The machine had no amplification and patrons had to listen to the music using one of four listening tubes. In its first six months of service, the Nickel-in-the-Slot earned over $1000.

Factors Affecting the History of the Jukebox

• During the 1890s, recordings had become popular primarily through coin-in-the-slot phonographs in public places.
  
• In the decade 1910-20, the phonograph became a truly mass medium for popular music, and recordings of large-scale orchestral works and other classical instrumental music proliferated.
  
• In the mid-1920s, radio, which provided free music, developed, and this new factor, plus the worldwide economic depression of the 1930s, threw the phonograph industry into serious decline.
  
• During the 1930s, as the American companies relied mainly on dance records in jukeboxes to satisfy a dwindled market, Europe supplied a slow but steady trickle of classical recordings.

History of the Rock-Ola Jukebox

Believe it or not, the name Rock-Ola is actually derived from the name of the company's founder. It also happens to be a real cool name for a jukebox, implying a "rock 'n' roll' play on words. David C. Rockola was born in Canada and as a young boy worked as a mechanic in a shop that repaired coin-operated devices. By 1926 he had his own company manufacturing coin-operated scales.

In the 1930s Rockola moved into pinball games and many other devices. As the demand for coin-operated phonographs increased the temptation to enter the jukebox arena, Rockola purchased a mechanism from a man named Smythe. Rockola reengineered this 12-select mechanism and started making jukeboxes in a big way (1935 Rock-Ola). Farny Wurlitzer viewed this a huge threat to his business based on Rockola's success in other machines. Wurlitzer tried to convince David Rockola that there was no room in the industry for another manufacturer. Wurlitzer then filed a $1 million lawsuit claiming patent infringement on the Smythe mechanism. Rockola eventually won the suit but not until he had spent half a million dollars in legal fees. This hurt Rockola but didn't kill him. He continued manufacturing and in 1939 introduced a series of very successful jukeboxes called "Luxury Light-Up".

During World War II, Rock-Ola led the industry in telephone-line music transmission systems. This was very popular because it allowed for many selections to be offered at a time when jukebox manufacturing was nearly halted because of the war effort. After World War II, the jukebox industry was booming. Boys were coming home and it was party time. Wurlitzer came out with the model 1015, probably the most popular jukebox of all time, and Rock-Ola introduced the "Magic Glow" series. These were models 1422, 1426, and 1428.

In the 1950s and '60s Rock-Ola was a formidable competitor on the jukebox field. The company came up with many new ideas, including a full-featured jukebox that was so small it could be hung on the wall! As the demand for jukeboxes went down in the '70s, Rock-Ola wound down the business to almost nothing. In the early 1990s Rock-Ola sold the business to Glenn Streeter, owner of Antique Apparatus Co. In Torrance, Calif. Streeter has taken the Rock-Ola name and given it new life, making it now one of the top jukebox manufacturers in the country, featuring a full line of commercial and home jukeboxes.

History of the Wurlitzer Jukebox

The Wurlitzer family started buying and selling musical items in Saxony as far back as 1659. Rudolph Wurlitzer came to the United States in 1853 and started an import business selling instruments to the U.S. government during the Civil War. Soon he became the largest instrument supplier in America and through a chain of retail stores in Chicago he started marketing a line of pianos which he manufactured. It wasn't long before Rudolph attached a coin slot to a player piano and literally started the coin-operated music boom of the late 1800s.

Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, Wurlitzer became famous for the large theater organs that created sound for silent films. These large organs and many other types of automatic instruments were manufactured at a large facility in North Tonawanda, N.Y., where the factory still stands today. Rudolph Wurlitzer died in 1914, leaving the business to his three sons. As the demand for theater organs and automatic pianos weakened, Wurlitzer went through some difficult times. The depression of 1929 nearly put the company out of business.

In 1933, Rudolph's youngest son, Farny, entered into a deal with Homer Capehart. Wurlitzer would manufacture a coin phonograph engineered by "Erickson" called the "Debutante". The repeal of prohibition was imminent and the demand for coin-operated music was about to explode. It did, and by 1937, Wurlitzer had sold over 100,000 phonographs.

Wurlitzer dominated the coin-operated phonograph business until the introduction of the 45 rpm record. At that point, Wurliter's mechanism could handle up to 24 records, playing only one side. Seeburg introduced a new mechanism that held 50 records and could play both sides, yielding a true 100-select jukebox. Wurlitzer made many attempts to compete with this by engineering new mechanisms for its machines, but never really caught up with Seeburg's domination of the jukebox market.

Operators in the early 1950s considered the new Wurlitzer mechanisms overly complex and not particularly reliable. After nearly giving up on jukeboxes in the early '60s and early '70s, Wurlitzer gave one last gasp in 1973 and tried to make a nostalgic-looking jukebox called the "1050". With only 1,600 units produced, the effort wasn't enough to bring back what was once the greatest jukebox manufacturer ever. Wurlitzer held on into the '70s but then when demand for jukeboxes faded, so did the Wurlitzer factory, eventually going out of business.

A new company in Germany has purchased the name Wurlitzer and is manufacturing bubbler CD jukeboxes called "One More Time".
1937 Wurlitzer model 616
1940 Wurlitzer model 71 countertop jukebox
1941 Wurlitzer model 750
1941 Wurlitzer model 850
1946 Wurlitzer model 1015
1954 Wurlitzer 1700
1973 Wurlitzer 1050

The History of the Seeburg Jukebox

Born in Sweden in 1871, Justice P. Seeburg came to the United States at the age of 16. He settled in Chicago and worked in the piano industry as a mechanic and supervisor. In 1907, J.P. Seeburg started his own manufacturing company using his own name. The J.P. Seeburg Piano Co. soon became the premier maker of Orchestrions in the United States. These automatic pianos had several instruments inside that could sound like a complete band. Seeburg continued with this line of instruments until 1927 when he discontinued the manufacturing of pianos and retooled for making the new coin-operated phonograph.

Seeburg was one of the first manufacturers of a multi-select jukebox with the introduction of the "Audiophone" in 1928. This wide-body, eight-selection box had pneumatic control valves making it half nickelodeon and half phonograph. This model was a reasonable success, but sales never reached huge numbers. By the 1930s other manufacturers had entered the market and were actually selling more jukeboxes than Seeburg. The next model, the Selectophone, was an engineering disaster. Warped spindles made operators mad and this mistake almost put the company under. When J.P. Seeburg entered his 60s in the late 1930s he turned the business over to his son Noel. He was a very sharp businessman and reorganized the company to compete more effectively with Wurlitzer and Rock-Ola. From 1940 until World War II, Seeburg produced some very reasonable and glitzy jukeboxes and did quite well.

But it was the year 1949 that would prove to be the year Seeburg would change the face of jukebox history when it engineered a mechanism that could play both sides of 50 records, a true 100-select jukebox (Peggy Lee with M100A). This mechaniam was so reliable that it nearly put all other manufacturers out of business. In 1950 Seeburg introduced the M100B, the first jukebox to play 45 rpm records. During the 1950s Seeburg enjoyed a dominant place in jukebox production, and in 1955 introduced the V-200, the first 200-select jukebox.

Like most other jukebox manufacturers, Seeburg suffered through the changing demand in the 1970s and after going in and out of business stopped operations in the United States.

1948 Seeburg 148
1952 Seeburg M100G