14 Facts About Emile Berliner

Emile Berliner originally Emil Berliner, was a German-American inventor.

Emile Berliner is best known for inventing the lateral-cut flat disc record used with a gramophone.

Emile Berliner founded the United States Gramophone Company in 1894.

Emile Berliner completed an apprenticeship to become a merchant, as was family tradition.

Emile Berliner invented an improved telephone transmitter, one of the first types of microphones.

Emile Berliner moved to Boston in 1877, where he became a United States citizen four years later.

Emile Berliner worked for Bell Telephone until 1883, when he returned to Washington and established himself as a private researcher.

Emile Berliner developed a rotary engine and an early version of the helicopter.

Between 1907 and 1926, Emile Berliner worked on technologies for vertical flight, including a lightweight rotary engine.

Emile Berliner obtained automobile engines from the Adams Company in Dubuque, Iowa, whose Adams-Farwell automobile used air-cooled three- or five-cylinder rotary engines developed in-house by Fay Oliver Farwell.

In 1909, Emile Berliner founded the Gyro Motor Company in Washington, DC The company's principals included Emile Berliner, president; Moore, designer and engineer; and Joseph Sanders, inventor, engineer, and manufacturer.

Emile Berliner, who suffered a nervous breakdown in 1914, advocated for improvements in public health and sanitation.

Emile Berliner advocated for women's equality and, in 1908, established a scholarship program, the Sarah Berliner Research Fellowship, in honor of his mother.

Emile Berliner is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, DC, alongside his wife and a son, Herbert Samuel Berliner.