American Record Corporation - Definition and Overview

The American Record Company, often known as ARC Records or simply ARC, was a United States based record company. It resulted from the merger in July of 1929 of Regal Records, Cameo Records, Banner Records, the US branch of Pathé Records and the Scanton Button Company, the parent compagny of Emerson Records.

Louis G. Sylvester (former head of Scanton) became president of the new company located at 1776 Broadway in Manhattan, New York City. In October 1929, Herbert Yates, head of Consolidated Film Company took control of ARC. In the following years, the company was very involved in a depressed market, buying failing labels at bargain prices to exploit their catalogue.

In December of 1931 Warner Brothers leased their Brunswick Records label and associated companies to ARC.

In 1932, ARC was king of the 3 records for a dollar market, selling 6 million units, twice as much as RCA Victor. In an effort to get back on top, RCA created its Bluebird label. ARC bought out the Columbia Records catalogue in 1934. ARC became part of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in 1938.

See also

• List of record labels