Electric guitars were originally designed by luthiers, guitar makers, electronics enthusiasts, and instrument manufacturers.

Guitar innovator Les Paul experimented with microphones attached to guitars. Some of the earliest electric guitars adapted hollow bodied acoustic instruments and used tungsten pickups. An electrically amplified guitar was developed by George Beauchamp in 1931.

Commercial production began in late summer of 1932 by Electro-Patent-Instrument Company Los Angeles, a partnership of Adolph Rickenbacker, Paul Barth and George Beauchamp, the inventor.

The wooden body of the prototype was built by Harry Watson, a craftsman who had worked for the National Resophonic Guitar Company (where the men met). By 1934 the company was renamed Rickenbacker Electro Stringed Instrument Company.