Carbon microphone
The first microphone that enabled proper voice telephony was the (loose-contact) carbon microphone (then called transmitter). This was independently developed around 1878 by David Edward Hughes in England and Emile Berliner and Thomas Edison in the US. Although Edison was awarded the first patent in mid-1877, Hughes had demonstrated his working device in front of many witnesses some years earlier, and most historians credit him with its invention.
Timeline of United States inventions (before 1890)
The phonograph, record player or gramophone is an instrument for recording, reproducing and playing back sounds. The earliest phonographs used cylinders containing an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which could be reproduced when the cylinder was played. Later, the gramophone record with modulated spiral grooves set atop a rotating turntable. The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Alva Edison at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. On February 8, 1878, Edison was issued the first patent (U.S. patent #200,521) for the phonograph.