Thomas Edison returned to the idea of using the phonograph as a telephone recorder. His 1914 invention, the Telescribe, was a simple device to record telephone conversations using wax cylinders. It was not an automatic answering machine like the Poulsen Telegraphone. The Telescribe was not successful, but a similar, cylinder-based telephone recorder was reintroduced a few years later by Edison’s business phonograph manufacturing company (the company that made Edison cylinder dictating machines).
![](https://recordinghistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/telescribe.jpg)