[CL401-F]

https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/folder/CL401-F

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Part Of: Company Records Series -- Compagnie Française du Phonographe Edison

[CL401-F] Corporate Records (1904-1924)

This folder is from the Legal Dept. record group in the Edison National Historical Park archives. It contains correspondence and other documents relating to the business and legal affairs of the Compagnie Française du Phonographe Edison. Included are items pertaining to the organization of the company in 1904, its leadership and facilities, and its dissolution in 1924. There are also partial corporate minutes; letters concerning a musical copyright agreement executed in 1905; a dealer's price contract from 1908; and a series of letters from 1909-1910 between Frank L. Dyer, president of the National Phonograph Co., and Thomas Graf, managing director of the National Phonograph Co., Ltd., in which Edison's plans for the French business are discussed. Other correspondents include William E. Gilmore, president and general manager of the National Phonograph Co. until 1908; John R. Schermerhorn, assistant general manager of the National Phonograph Co., Ltd.; James H. White, president of the Compagnie Française du Phonographe Edison and managing director of the National Phonograph Co., Ltd., until 1906; and patent agents Brandon Brothers in Paris and George Croyden Marks in London.

Approximately 20 percent of the documents have been selected. The unselected items include monthly sales reports and evaluations of musical recordings; documents pertaining to the musical copyright agreement negotiated with Lucien Vives of the Agencie Générale d'Edition Phonographique and to other matters of French musical copyright; and correspondence regarding the flight of managing director Maurice Lehmann to Germany at the outbreak of World War I. Also not selected are routine statements of account; proxies and stock transfers; letters of transmittal and acknowledgment; and documents that duplicate information in selected items. Related material can be found in the National Phonograph Company Records (Company Records Series).

Courtesy of Thomas Edison National Historical Park.

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