American Record Company

History The American Record Company was both a label and a company. As a record company, it also supplied other early 20th century labels, including American Odeon Record, Busy Bee Record, Kalamazoo Record, Mills "Perfeg" Record, National, Peerless and Sterling. The history of the American Record Company is a colorful and checkered one. It was one of the most persistent of several record companies that operated in direct violation of the basic Berliner and Jones patents held by Victor Talking Machine Co. and Columbia Phonograph Co. Ellsworth Hawthorne and Horace Sheble were Philadelphia-based phonograph distributors who ran into trouble with Thomas Edison for pasting their own labels on his machines. Their third partner, John Prescott, had a brother named Frederick, who was a principal of the International Talking Machine Company (Zon-O-Phone), which in 1901 had been barred from producing records in contravention of Victor/Columbia's crucial patents. Discs were pressed in Empedite, a blue-tinted shellac compound that was touted as "harder and more durable than any composition yet discovered". After Columbia won a decisive court case against Zon-O-Phone in 1906, it was forced to cease operations. American Record Company masters were then shipped to England and subsequently reissued on several minor British and European labels, including Brittanic, Defiant, Pelican and The Leader. Trivia Though an Indian [featured on the label] is used in a positive way to symbolize the word 'American,' the slogan "Music hath Charms" is only half of the phrase which ends with "to soothe the [u]savage['s][/u] breast," suggesting a racial slur.