Victor Talking Machine Company

The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American record company and phonograph manufacturer headquartered in Camden, New Jersey.

Foundation:

The company was founded by engineer Eldridge R. Johnson, who had previously made gramophones to play Emile Berliner’s disc records. After a series of legal wranglings between Berliner, Johnson and their former business partners, the two joined to form the Consolidated Talking Machine Co. in order to combine the patents for the record with Johnson’s patents improving its fidelity. Victor Talking Machine Co. was incorporated officially in 1901 shortly before agreeing to allow Columbia Records use of its disc record patent.

Company Name:

There are different accounts as to how the “Victor” name came about. RCA historian Fred Barnum gives various possible origins of the name in “His Master’s Voice” In America, he writes,
“One story claims that Johnson considered his first improved Gramophone to be both a scientific and business ‘victory.’ A second account is that Johnson emerged as the ‘Victor’ from the lengthy and costly patent litigations involving Berliner and Frank Seaman’s Zonophone. A third story is that Johnson’s partner, Leon Douglass, derived the word from his wife’s name ‘Victoria.’ Finally, a fourth story is that Johnson took the name from the popular ‘Victor’ bicycle, which he had admired for its superior engineering. Of these four accounts, the first two are the most generally accepted.”
Perhaps coincidentally, the first use of the Victor title on a letterhead, on March 28, 1901, was only nine weeks after the death of British Queen Victoria.

Acquisition by Radio Corporation of America:

In 1926, Johnson sold his controlling (but not holding) interest in the Victor Company to the banking firms of JW Seligman and Spyer & Co, who in turn sold Victor to the Radio Corporation of America in 1929. It then became known briefly as the Radio-Victor Division of the Radio Corporation of America, then the RCA Manufacturing Company, the RCA Victor Division and in 1968, RCA Records. Most record labels continued to bear only the “Victor” name until 1946, when the labels changed to “RCA Victor” and eventually, to simply “RCA” in late 1968, “Victor” becoming the label designation for RCA’s popular music releases.