The history of the electric guitar begins in the 1930s when DeArmond started manufacturing electric pickups which were designed to attach to the soundhole of acoustic guitars. These worked more or less similarly to modern pickups, but given that they were outfitted on standard acoustic guitars they produced a very different sound than modern electrics. The modern solid body electric guitar has much more sustain and is less susceptible to feedback than these early acoustic-electric mixes.
In 1935 Gibson developed the first guitar to come outfitted with a pickup. The guitar had a completely hollow archtop body and f-holes. These models were later improved with more pickups.
In the 1950s gibson made another improvement on their hollow body guitars by making the body thinner and having a solid block underneath the bridge. This resulted in significantly less feedback and improved the sustain of the guitar. This was the first semi-acoustic guitar.
There are still many very popular models of semi-acoustic guitar made by companies such as gibson, gretsch, guild and epiphone. They are very popular in jazz music for their distinctive tone.
