ITS TIME! Camden, New Jersey Should Honor Music Legend E. R. Johnson
By: Graham Alexander
The name Eldridge Reeves Johnson might not ring a bell for many in 2021. Even in the music industry (of which he was the most powerful person in the industry for many years), Johnson was a ‘company man’ and he focused his life’s attention primarily on the industries he largely developed; the music (and by extension the home entertainment) industry.
SOME BACKGROUND (In case you aren’t familiar with Eldridge R. Johnson):
42 workers outside of The Johnson Workshop (later Victor Building #1); like many bands and performers in later eras of the music industry - the entire music industry itself began out of this small garage at North Front St. in Camden, NJ - where the first disk turntables/record players were built for the public; the birth of the modern home entertainment/electronics/music industry.
A humble machine shop worker, Johnson struggled with his machine repair business (operated out of a garage on North Front St. in Camden) from 1894 till 1896 - doing repairs on machine part development for local factories. Johnson had worked at the garage for some years earlier - but by happenstance was able to take over the largely unprofitable business while living in Philadelphia and commuting to work everyday starting in 1894.
Johnson was a tall, quiet, medium spoken man that had always longed to afford to be able to be college educated - but had wound up becoming a talented machinists apprentice in an era before the mass production of machine parts largely drove this craft out of existence. During those days, inventors could simply approach a local metal or machine shop and say; “I have an idea…can you help me build it?”…and often enough; they would!
One such inventor (and his crew), Emile Berliner, came to visit Johnson at his Camden NJ garage one day in 1895 with an idea for an invention that would change everything. Berliner had invented a machine he was marketing as ‘The Gramophone’ - he had displayed (in the prior year) the somewhat working concept of the machine that played an accompanying invention; the DISK RECORD
Johnson, aged 32 - lived in Camden, Philadelphia and later Moorestown, NJ.
Somewhere up the turnpike, Thomas Edison had invented the world’s first recording and playback machine - which recorded on cylinders. This, however, was a concept that was born to die.
Berliner presented his patented invention to Johnson that day in 1895 - and described to him his further ideas on how to monetize what would become ‘the record player’ - or ‘turntable’. Berliner explained the concept; the disk record, unlike Edison’s invention, could be duplicated countless times - and pressed and delivered to homes that would utilize the machine as a HOME ENTERTAINMENT device - rather than a voice memo type device (which had been the large push of Edison’s concept for the CYLINDER). Johnson was fascinated by the disk record and record player - and immediately agreed to work with Berliner & Co. to improve the device, and manufacture the concept on a mass scale.
Thus, the music & home entertainment industries were born simultaneously…and after a few years, Johnson was named President of the company that the two formed - a company we now know as ‘The Victor Talking Machine Co.’ (some will know it as Victor Records). The term ‘Victor’ had 2 meanings; Johnson & Berliner felt vindicated when Thomas Edison’s associated CYLINDER companies tried to invalidate Berliner & Johnson’s inventions and failed (thus making them the ‘VICTOR’ in lawsuits designed to destroy the concept altogether) - and the ‘record players and records’ themselves were SUPERIOR in both sound, recording, and build - thus making them the ‘VICTOR’ of the very short-lived format wars of the early recording industry
The original Victor Vault in the 1950s in Camden, NJ - Bldg. 13. Many of these recordings are now located at in The Victor Vault at Victor Bldg. 19, Camden County NJ.
The Victor Company would go on to found the global music industry - in Japan (JVC being the Japanese Victor Company), in the UK, Johnson would send his roommate, Alfred Clark, to operate Victor’s ‘His Master’s Voice’/The Gramophone Co. (Later known as EMI), In London itself, the world famous Abbey Road Studios would be founded by Victor as HMV’s parent company - they’d form The Deutsche Grammophon Co./Electrola Gmbh (DGC, a still existent leading company in the global music industry - specifically in the European Union)..later, HMV would become a successful chain of music retail stores (still existent in many places) - EMI would purchase Capitol Records in America - Victor would merge to form RCA-Victor…
Truly, the sun never sets on the Victor Empire that Eldridge Reeves Johnson formed - an empire formed (astonishingly) before the invention of global telecommunications systems. In 1985, Johnson would receive his first posthumous GRAMMY award (ironically named after The Gramophone that Johnson was largely responsible for bringing to market..and itself a statue design based on one of Victor’s first ‘record players’.)..of course; this award means little when you consider that Johnson is responsible for signing off on the very first Jazz, Blues, Country, Bluegrass, Orchestral, Opera, Comedy, and Electronic records ever made - Victor signing the likes of Caruso, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, The Carter Family, Fats Waller, The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Boston Symphony Orchestra, Duke Ellington, and later artists like Frank Sinatra, Woody Guthrie, LeadBelly, Memphis Minnie, Jimmy Rogers, Walt Disney’s Pinnocio, Snow White, Fantasia, Paramount’s The Jazz Singer (the first ‘sound-film) - honestly…its 100s of legendary artists…head to Victorville at VictorRecords.com to learn more… as an aside The Victor Sound Foundation has done an incredible amount of work on preserving the historic aspects of the company.
Johnson is directly (or indirectly) responsible for not only the 30+ buildings of the Victor Complex (once known as the RCA-Victor Complex) - but he built or contributed to the building of another 40 or so buildings around Camden County.
None the less, it should be said - Eldridge Johnson was not a man of many words - for the recording and home entertainment industry he largely helped found; there is a shockingly small amount of media related to Mr. Johnson. He was not a man of ‘flash’ - he believed, like many of the era, that quality should speak for itself. Besides the famous Victor Camden NJ Plant - Johnson oversaw the design and building of many Victor properties around the globe; in Yokohama, Japan - the JVC Plant, in Hayes, London UK, in Hannover Germany, in China, in Los Angeles (which would later house the famous ‘The Record Plant’ recording studio to the modern age - named for …the fact that it was once….a record plant/studio for The Victor Company), the Montreal Victor plant (which now houses the Emile Berliner Museum) - and many many many others that I’m leaving out
Johnson himself, besides improving his partner Emile Berliner’s invention of the record player and disk record - added the critical patents needed to make the machine a formidable home entertainment device; he improved the recording process, standardized the disk record, and even invented the literal paper label still on records today (record surfaces were originally ETCHED with the name of the artist and song). Its too long a list to even mention - but the man was a genius….although he would say he was in the right place at the right time.
Oh, he was an inventor too; not only did he invent the disk recording system that took Berliner’s original idea from ‘incomplete’ to a 120+ year staple in the home - but he also invented the literal record label (the paper label), the modern tone arm style for record players that are still base all record player manufacturing on today, the motor and design of the first mass produced record players, and the formulation of the wax master records utilized for the first 50ish years of the music industry for cutting sound to record (a process we still use today). If this isn’t enough; As Johnson took over the business side of his company…he launched the world’s largest private research firm for the music and home entertainment industry;
This Victor research and development department he founded (located at the now demolished Victor Buildings 10, 13, and 15 in Camden, NJ) then developed the vinyl record, the 33, 45, and 78 speed standards, the modern single band radio tuner (and thus bluetooth technology), ribbon microphones, the modern speaker, noise cancelling headphones, battery powered radios/wireless music, the synthesizer, the first drum machine, the first electrical recording method (which we still utilize in the modern age), visual wave-editing and acoustic research and their standards, the automatic record changer - and later (and my later RCA/Victor Family friends can still attest to this)…the TV, television broadcasting, SAT-COM 1 & 2, the styling of RAM utilized in all smartphones today, the jacks and cable connectors of all pro and home audio gear, the switches and plugs for all musical instruments, the basis of what would become the internet…and on..and on…and on…
THE POINT:
If you’ve read this far; hey! congratulations - you may have learned something. If you haven’t - and you already knew most of the above…you may not know one thing that I feel obliged to share (which is the basis of this article)…
Eldridge R. Johnson so loved the Camden & Philadelphia area that he fought arguably harder and contributed more to its development than any politician or business leader has ever contributed. For this; he is largely ignored. This ignorance isn’t from locals themselves - but often enough, politicians or politically linked organizations; I’ve now spent many years in the modern Victor Co. learning from the great people of the area (and specifically relatives and members of the RCA/Victor Family) about their reverence for Johnson and his contributions - not to the music and home entertainment industry; but to his employees, artists, friends, family, and citizens of the South Jersey/Philadelphia area. I can say first hand from experience, Johnson’s lack of acknowledgement is because of a combination of his personal approach to publicity of his good deeds - and a political sphere in the area that is increasingly focused on the ‘what has he done for me lately’ attitude of modern Trump style lawmakers that all too often create a hazy paradigm in which good citizens are left wondering…’how could this have happened?’…and by the time you wonder that; the time has passed.
When Johnson passed away in 1945, The Mayor of Camden ordered the flags of the city flown at half staff for the passing funeral procession over the Benjamin Franklin bridge to Johnson’s final resting place outside of Philadelphia - Johnson’s son (Eldridge Fenimore Johnson) would later remark; ‘That is the first time that Camden has ever done anything for Pop’. When ‘Fen’ proposed a Johnson Family funded museum in Camden - he was largely rebuffed and set up the ‘Johnson Victrola Museum’ in Dover Delaware with an endowment from the family for its maintenance (this museum has been a staple of that town since the late 1970s). The city would later tear down historic Victor Buildings 13, 10, 14, 18, 5, 6, 7, and 3 (the only building built by the combined RCA-Victor Company in Camden). Johnson’s played primary (or intricate) roles in the funding/development of the now demolished Walt Whitman Hotel, the entire Camden County Park System, large swathes of research department funding for University Of Pennsylvania, The Cooper Branch Library, the now demolished athletic center of Camden, the Moorestown Community Center, The Camden Community Center, Tavistock Country Club, the expansion of the facilities of the Pennsylvania Railroad (now NJ Transit and PATCO) land holdings, the donation of thousands of textbooks to Camden County and Burlington County School Libraries (some of which are still in service!). the development of what is now Cooper Hospital, and much much more. In the age of the Jeff Bezos’s and Elon Musks of the world squirreling away billions for himself while their employees struggle to make ends meet, a moral man of ethical wealth such as Eldridge Johnson should be looked upon as a model of how to give back to a community of individuals that have given so much to you.
The time *hasn’t* passed for Eldridge R. Johnson; the music industry he created still feels his direct business and artistic influence - its headphones, earphones, iPhones, bluetooth speakers, and more are still a direct lineage to his and Victor’s efforts - and DISK JOCKEYS and VINYL lovers worship the largely Camden, NJ developed format more than they ever have. As head of the modern Victor Company - myself and my team have helped oversee an expansion of the phonograph (and record) industry in the last decade that is almost unbelievable in scale - for an invention that came from a little garage in Camden, NJ.
I say this with the utmost bias; Victor’s music industry is an American gem - which Eldridge Reeves Johnson is largely responsible for mining - and it is our collective duty to re-polish and maintain this legend in any way we can while in the process reclaiming our collective heritage as a region; and giving ourselves something to aspire to for future generations.
The Victor Co. formed The Victor Sound Foundation several years ago as an arm of The Victor Talking Machine Co. - donating all of our ‘Victor Vault’ holdings to said organization with the aim of establishing a facility dedicated to such preservation/experience…our first task was to save ‘The Victor Records Building’ (also known as BLDG 2) - at 201 North Front St. To this day, I’m proud to say you can find our efforts all over the official New Jersey State Official Historic Designation - a designation that was a long time coming for the historic former head office of the world’s largest music company. Often working with us in these types of preservation journeys are organizations like the wonderful (but criminally underfunded) Camden County Historic Society - members of the Berliner & Johnson families - Mr. Fred Barnum…and more. Occasionally, working against us we tend to have the heavily corporate/politically influenced organizations - which I won’t name for the sake of not creating a slew of comments which will only serve to remove focus from the point of the article ill just say that these folks need to prioritize this legacy in the next decade - or we will all risk losing it permanently to time.
Today, Johnson’s legacy goes largely ignored on the site of the park known as ‘Johnson Park’ - now operated by Rutgers University. The Cooper Branch Library and Park were donated by Johnson & The Victor Co. in 1915 - Johnson would go on to carefully craft the park as a public installation which he then donated to the citizens of Camden, NJ with an endowment for its upkeep. By the 1960s, this endowment had run out; and Camden’s politicos made no attempt to find a means of up keeping the park. RCA-Victor stepped in to rehab the park with a donation and it soon fell slowly into disrepair again. The building was restored and rented later to an arts organization - and later to Rutgers. None the less, Rutgers latest idea includes the possible demolition of Johnson’s art installation at the park - which you can read about HERE.
Originally known as Victor Bldg. 2, The Victor Co. dubbed this building ‘The Victor Records Building’ in 2017 in a project that saved it from the wrecking ball. The attached building (the only building built during RCA’s ownership of Victor in Camden) - known as building 3 - was demolished for parking by the new inhabitants of the building, EMR.
Meanwhile, just down the street, the tax payer subsidized buildings that replaced Victor Buildings 10 and 13 - now have the oddly named ‘RCA Pier Park’. Named by Cooper’s Ferry Development, the name of the park ignores the fact that the pier was neither built by RCA (a New York based company that was never headquartered in Camden, NJ) - nor last owned by RCA. In fact, the pier (which was built by Victor/Eldridge Johnson in the earlier 1900s) is largely associated to RCA for the 1970s loading of the very tooling and manufacturing equipment onto ships that would render Camden, NJ’s former Victor plant a manufacturing ghost town. Sort of odd …the ‘RCA-Victor’ Pier would have been a much more appropriate and honoring name - but alas! it isn’t their job to get things right - its their job to get things done and they’ve certainly done that with projects like the now demolished Campbell’s Field.
But I digress!
Across from 201 North Front St. there is no city signage about the birth of the music industry; just a single very large new sign that reads ‘Slaves sold here’. Fair enough — this is certainly a historic concept worth remembering and holding in our minds …however, the site at which the sign stands is approximately 1200 feet from the site of the colonial era slave trading post …..and 0 feet from where the music industry was born..misleading visitors as to the history of where they’re standing. Maybe we think about putting the signs in the proper locations? In fact, there is not a single city/county historic sign anywhere across the Camden Waterfront about Johnson, Victor, RCA-Victor (a side note; there IS a correct sign installed at the Pier Park by Cooper’s Ferry…and for this; they deserve credit.)
The point at all of this is to draw attention to the fact that there is a lot of work to be done with the preservation of our past. I say OUR past as a Camden born and living citizen in relation to our history…..to my Victor Associates in relation to our legacy as a brand and company….and as a musician in relation to our present and future industry; which can learn a lot about REBUILDING the music industry from understanding where it came from. As a rule, humans often overlook how we got to where we are; in many ways…our honoring of the past can show us the future.
If our region can readopt and serve some gratitude up to our ancestors; the hundreds of thousands of local workers that made up the Victor (and later RCA-Victor) Family, and Eldridge R. Johnson himself - we can establish the same kind of goodwill that Louisville has with Baseball - or Hollywood has with Film. The Camden, NJ area is to music industry what Hershey, PA is to the modern confections industries; the difference is…they own that identity…we refuse to. Good news? we still can…but we need to act now.
Let’s put a museum in Camden, NJ.
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