Charles Sumner Tainter

Charles Sumner Tainter was an American scientific instrument maker, engineer and inventor, best known for his collaborations with Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, Alexanders fatherinlaw Gardiner Hubbard, and for his significant improvements to Thomas Edisons phonograph, resulting in the Graphophone, one version of which was the first Dictaphone.

Tainter was born in Watertown, Massachusetts, where he attended public school. His education was modest, acquiring his knowledge mostly through selfeducation. In 1873, he took a job with the Alvan Clark and Sons Company producing telescopes in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which then came under contract with the U.S. Navy to conduct observations of the transit of Venus on December 8, 1874, resulting in Tainter being sent with one of its observation expeditions to New Zealand. In 1878 he opened his own shop for the production of scientific instruments in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, where he made the acquaintance of Alexander Graham Bell. A year later Bell called Tainter to what would become his Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C., where he would work for the next several years.

Source: Wikipedia