Brunswick Records

Records under the "Brunswick" label were first produced by the Brunswick Bake Collender Company[?] (a company based in Dubuque, Iowa which had been manufacturing products ranging from pianos to sporting equipment since 1845). The company first began producing phonographs in 1916, then began marketing their own line of records as an after-thought. These first Brunswick Records used the vertical cut system like Edison Records Discs, and were not sold in large numbers.

A Brunswick Record label from 1922

In January of 1920 a new line of Brunswick Records were introduced using the lateral cut system that was then becoming the default cut for 78 disc records. The parent company markeded them extensively, and within a few years Brunswick became one of the USA's Big Three record companies, along with Victor and Columbia Records. The Brunswick line of home phonographs were also commercially successful.

In late 1924 Brunswick aquired the Vocalion Records[?] label.

Around 1926 Brunswick introduced its own version of electrical recording called the "Light Ray Process" using photo electrical cells, although it switched to the more conventional microphone process a few years later. Around the same time they introduced the Brunswick Panatrope, the first home phonograph that reproduced records electrically. This met with critical acclaim, and composer Ottorino Respighi[?] selected the Brunswick Panatrope to play a recording of bird song in his composition "The Pines of Rome".

In April of 1930 Brunswick Balke Collender sold Brunswick Records to Warner Brothers, which then sold it to the American Record Corporation[?] in December of 1931.

In 1932 the British branch of Brunswick was acquired by Decca Records.

In 1939 the U.S.A. Brunswick label was bought by CBS, which discontinued the label in 1940 The folowing year rights to use the Brunswick label in the New World and the back catalogue of Brunswick recordings from 1931 and earlier were sold to US Decca. (Rights to recordings from 1932 on were retained by CBS.)

In 1944 Decca revived the Brunswick label, mostly for reissues of recordings from earlier decades.