Automatic record players activated by putting a coin in them were one of the earliest methods of making money from Thomas Edison's phonograph invention. The juke box really came of age in the 1930s and 1940s when the Great Depression almost eliminated the sale of records to individuals and made the coin-slot record player an important source of musical entertainment. These machines brought specific kinds of music to the public and played a part in the ascent of swing and rock 'n' roll as mass movements of popular culture.

The failure to develop a long-playing record in the first half of the twentieth century put a premium on technology which could automate the process of playing several records one after the other. The first automatic record changer was patented in 1921, and it was followed by many different devices that could pick and play discs; some could...