Charles Sumner Tainter (April 25, 1854 – April 20, 1940) was an American scientific instrument maker, engineer and inventor, best known for his collaborations with Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, Alexander's father-in-law Gardiner Hubbard, and for his significant improvements to Thomas Edison's phonograph, resulting in the Graphophone, one version of which was the first Dictaphone.
Australia's most prolific artist, Australian country music singer Slim Dusty, signed with the Columbia Graphophone Co. for the Regal Zonophone label in 1946 and remained with EMI until his death in 2003 - selling over 7 million records for the label in Australia by 2007.
Famous factories included Wheeler & Wilson, which produced sewing machines and exported them throughout the world, Remington UMC, Bridgeport Brass, General Electric Company, American Graphophone Company (Columbia Records), Warner Brothers Corset Company (Warnaco) and the Locomobile Company of America, builder of one of the premier automobiles in the early years of the century.
Regina used a phonograph mechanism manufactured by the American Graphophone Company, which evolved into Columbia Records.
As Sony only had a temporary license on the CBS Records name, it then acquired the rights to the Columbia trademarks outside the U.S., Canada and Japan (Columbia Graphophone) from EMI, which generally had not been used by them since the early 1970s.