Jukeboxes originate from the musical Snuff Boxes of the 18th Century called Carillons a Musique. The original snuff boxes were tiny and pocket-sized. They were clockwork and contained metal cylinders which, in later models, could be swapped to play different tunes. These tiny boxes were further developed into large table top boxes with interchangeable cylinders. The cylinders often ‘programmed’ to play a system of bellows and levers to produce wind to play a wind instrument or pluck the strings on a string instrument.

A good example of an early jukebox is the Orchestrian. It was designed to sound like an orchestra, had a large cylinder with pins to act as the music program. Some Orchestrian produced piano, percussion and wind sounds simultaneously.

The coin operated music boxes and phonographs of the 1870s produced sound using a set of pins placed on a revolving drum or disc which plucked the tuned teeth of a steel comb. Some also contained bells. Later came the development of wax cylinders, and tin foil drums, that could play music more than once leading to an appreciation of recorded music but what really fuelled people’s appetites was the proliferation of coin-in-the-slot phonographs in public places in 1890s. The phonograph maintained its popularity until the advent of radio in the 1920s and the economic depression of the 1930s.

The revolving cylinders were referred to as records and the early ones were sometimes made of wax or tin foil which deteriorated after a couple of plays. The Indestructible Record Company produced cylinder records made of celluloid that didn’t wear out for 1000’s of plays.

The flat disc was developed to compete with the cylinder records. Cylinder records went out of production in 1929 but their decline started when the industry leaders, Columbia Records, mass produced a double sided disc. However, the method of recording sound onto the flat discs had not yet been standardised until the early 1940s.

In 1918 Hobart Niblack patented a design that automated the changing of records which eventually contributed to the first jukebox, an Automatic Phonograph, being manufactured in 1927 by the Automated Musical Instrument Company (AMI).

In 1928 an electrostatic loudspeaker was attached to a coin-operated record player giving the user the a choice of 8 records. The world’s first electrically amplified multi selection phonograph was created by the Automated Music Instrument Company.

In 1950 the Seeburg Corporation introduced a 45rpm vinyl record jukebox which made the shellac 78rpm dominated jukeboxes obsolete. However, it took a while for the 78rpm jukeboxes to be taken out of use – they were simply shipped to the poorer areas.

The jukebox took its name from the ‘Juke  Joints’ of the south eastern United States. During the times of slavery, community rooms on plantations were provided for African Americans to socialise. The juke joints evolved after the Emancipation and allowed the patrons of the juke joints a chance to dance, drink, dine, gamble and trade goods. The word Juke may originate from a Gullah word Joog which means disorderly or rowdy. Gullah is a language spoken in Sierra Leone.