Phonograph:New Orthophonic High Fidelity

On the outside, this Victrola record player manufactured by the RCA/Victor Company of Camden, New Jersey, looks thoroughly conventional. Common in the American home, it had changed little in external appearance from the first portable phonographs manufactured in the 1920s. The back of the record player reveals that RCA was on the cutting edge of technological progress: manufactured in the late '50s, this standard record player contains attachments for external stereo speakers. Introduced in 1958, stereo had already taken America by storm in 1959. The Victor Talking Machine Company set the standard for the phonograph and home entertainment in general in 20th-century America. When the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) bought the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1929, it acquired the rights to Victor's phonograph manufacturing as well as its familiar "Nipper" logo, by then the most familiar icon of American advertising. RCA used Victor's dominant market position, the household acceptance of its Victrola, and its charming dog logo to consolidate its hold on the home-entertainment market. RCA made radios; its subsidiary, NBC, provided programming; and now, through Victor, RCA gained a major stake in home entertainment.