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Overview
As one of America's greatest independent inventors, Jenkins's passion was to meet the needs of his day and the future. In 1895 he produced the first film projector able to show a motion picture on a large screen, coincidentally igniting the first film boycott among his Quaker viewers when the film he screened showed a woman's ankle. Jenkins produced the first American television pictures in 1923, and developed the only fully operating broadcast television station in Washington, D.C. transmitting to ham operators from coast to coast as well as programming for his local audience.
Godfrey's biography raises the profile of C. Francis Jenkins from his former place in the footnotes to his rightful position as a true pioneer of today's film and television. Along the way, it provides a window into the earliest days of both motion pictures and television as well as the now-vanished world of the independent inventor.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780252038280 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Illinois Press |
| Publication date: | 03/20/2014 |
| Series: | The History of Media and Communication |
| Edition description: | 1st Edition |
| Pages: | 304 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
C. Francis Jenkins, Pioneer of Film and Television
THE HISTORY OF COMMUNICATION
By DONALD G. GODFREY
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
Copyright © 2014 Board of Trustees of the University of IllinoisAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-252-03828-0
CHAPTER 1
Jenkins' Heritage and youth
An Age of Things Mechanical
Today's world is predicated on the inventive ingenuity of those who preceded us. Imagine life without the movies, television, telephone, airplanes, or automobiles. The twentieth century added those things and more into our lives. The inventors of past centuries, including Charles Francis Jenkins, made these things possible. They worked as independents and often clashed with established industry giants, as Jenkins did. It was challenging for lone inventors to make a living, fund their work, and promote acceptance of a new device, and Jenkins had to meet each of these challenges. He was brilliant, gifted, mechanically inclined, and intuitive. His life spanned six decades of American history, seeing the birth of photography, radio, television, the automobile, and the airplane. He was an amateur photographer who loved to travel, a personality in demand, and a pilot. His mechanical television devices are gone, but his concepts in film projection, using intermittent motion, and his theories related to optical signals in television remain a viable force.
Jenkins lived in an age of things mechanical. He was a product of the Industrial Revolution motivated by the famous Rev. Russell Conwell's sermon "Acres of Diamonds," which reflected the American Dream: "rags to riches ... onward and upward." Conwell set this national opportunistic tone, preaching this sermon more than six thousand times across the nation. His ancestors had left Europe, settled in rural America, and later moved into cities in search of better lives. Collectively, these immigrants were the labor force of the Industrial Era. In the case of Jenkins individually, Conwell was a resourceful reserve of ideas.
Jenkins lived from the Industrial and Gilded Ages through World War I, the Roaring Twenties, and the Great Depression. The 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic killed an estimated fifty million people—more than the war itself. It was the deadliest human disaster in history. Schools, businesses, and homes were closed and quarantined. Jenkins' work contributed to stalling the spread of the disease by providing a new sanitary milk bottle, which, according to family lore, brought him more profits than any other invention. To Jenkins, however, all of this was a means of supporting his primary endeavors in film and later television. By the 1920s, the United States had become a global economic, industrial, and military power. Financial investments once reserved for the war effort were now back in the marketplace. As a result, inventors prospered. No one anticipated the stock market crash on October 29, 1929. The market had always corrected itself, and in the 1920s investment returns had been exceptional. The crash ended all of that. It devastated the American population. Corporations crumbled, including the Jenkins Television Corporation and the Jenkins Laboratories.
So, what did Jenkins contribute during these contrasting ages? Why should he be remembered today? He should be remembered as an inventor and a man of eminent forward-thinking ideas. In his own time, he ranked among the "Remakers of Civilization." He was described as "one of a trio of the nation's foremost inventors" and "one of the ten greatest figures in Motion Pictures." In radio, he was placed among the top one hundred men of science. Scientific American described him as having "the mind of the practical, working inventor ... dedicated to his profession like any banker, lawyer, medical doctor or journalist [who] would become the man who [kept] America in the front ranks in the development of radio vision or 'seeing' by radio." He was known as "one of radio's most colorful personages," a pioneer of "seeing via the ether." The Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Arthur C. Hardy credited our ability to see movies in our homes as "due largely to the efforts of C. Francis Jenkins." His primary inventions were in motion picture and television, but he held hundreds of patents for an amazingly wide variety of inventions. He spearheaded motion-picture and television work with mechanical systems, and then, when electronic television replaced mechanical systems, he moved into optical-electronic systems. Inventing was his natural talent (see appendix A for a list of Jenkins' patents). The story of C. Francis Jenkins would have been different without the Great Depression, or if he had lived longer. Yet, even in a world permeated by inventive contrasts, worldwide epidemics, the Great War, and economic roller coasters, L. C. Porters depicted Jenkins as "a man of great vision, with courage of his convictions, a man of indomitable will and boundless energy." He was a "happy warrior ... launching a daring attempt to unite television and motion pictures." This is our Charles Francis Jenkins.
Growing Up on the Farm
Charles Francis Jenkins was a Quaker farm boy, born just north of Dayton, Ohio, on August 22, 1867. Two years after his birth, his parents moved to Richmond, Indiana, where he grew up through his teenage years. The 141-acre farm was ten miles north of Richmond, near the small community of Fountain City. The house where he spent his youth still stands: a twelve-room, two-story brick structure that remains picturesque today. Tall pine, maple, fir, and linden trees line a long lane from the main road down to the home. In one corner of the yard there was once a circle of cedar trees, which the Jenkins children used as an imaginative playhouse during the warm summer months. Green lawns, shrubbery, and fields of beans surrounded the home. The children's nursery was on the first floor in the northeast corner of the house. They were easily entertained by life on the farm—there were animals to play with and trees to climb. The honking of the Canadian geese flying overhead, in their annual migrations, fascinated the youngsters. Cows, sheep, pigs, and work animals were raised on the farm. Making soap was Jenkins' first lesson in practical chemistry. The primary crops were beans and wheat. Francis learned the meaning of hard work, driving the four horse teams at an early age.
The daily chores were physically demanding, farm work was difficult, and life depended upon a successful harvest. His earliest summer chores included keeping the fire going in the smokehouse, where meat was hung and cured for the winter. The meat came from the family's small herd of grazing cattle or the surrounding forest, which was full of game and other wildlife. As a boy, he cracked the large rocks and cleared them from the fields in preparation for planting. He helped in the harvest, tended the animals, and, more reflective of his natural talents, he kept the farm in good mechanical working order. Each farmer was self-reliant and traded "in kind" with neighbors and storekeepers for their needs. The stores in town accepted farm products as trade currency.
The New Garden Friends church, where the Jenkins family worshiped, still stands. It is just south of Fountain City and was established by the Quakers in 1811. It was a centerpiece of life and one of the Underground Railroad depots where southern slaves were helped North to escape captivity. The family of Amasa and Mary Jenkins were devout. The horse-and-buggy stalls, originally just north of the church, are long gone, but in the Jenkins family's day these shelters protected their horses from the cold winters during church services. Amasa drove "a carriage with a matched pair of horses, a clear sign of affluence."
Farm life and his Quaker origins were the foundations of life for young Jenkins—who in his early years dropped "Charles" and became known as "Francis." Formally, he would be known as C. Francis Jenkins. His understanding of mechanics helped solve regular farming challenges. In those days, if something was broken, you fixed it. You could not readily replace it or purchase a part. Add to this independence a natural work ethic, the Quaker belief in a working Christianity and God as a personal being who encourages works over financial gain, and one can begin to understand Jenkins' lifelong devotion to his work.
The Jenkins Family
Francis came from a rural family with a rich inventive streak; extended family members say that invention was in the Jenkins blood. A family cousin, later a technical advisor to the president of the Monsanto Research Corporation, had forty-five of his own patents and enjoyed "gadgeteering." Robert Jenkins, who first owned the local jewelry store, was said to have invented the rolling cookie cutter.
Francis's father Amasa was born in Marion County, Ohio. He was Welsh, and his mother English. Amasa worked on his family's farm near Dayton, Ohio, and attended public school. He later attended the Spiceland Academy and Earlham College for his advanced education. He was drafted into the military but was honorably discharged due to his religious beliefs as a devout Quaker and thus a conscientious objector. He was six feet tall, a dignified man who carried himself in a stately manner. He had a "kind face, inspiring confidence ... gracious[ness] ... and common sense." He was a Christian man who commanded respect.
Francis's mother, Mary Ann Thomas, came from a large family of seven brothers and sisters. She was born and raised in the New Garden neighborhood and attended church and school. She too was a student at Earlham College and later taught school. Mary's brother was a friend of Amasa Jenkins, and Amasa was a frequent visitor at the Thomas farm. Mary saw life as an "opportunity for service ... either in her own home ... or in helping someone else." Her friends compared her to Dorcas, the New Testament woman who spent her life making clothes for the poor. Mary befriended the lonely, "in trial or need.... [T]o visit and cheer the sick and shut-ins was an especial pleasure to her." Amasa and Mary would have seven children—five boys and two girls. Francis was the firstborn, the only one born in Ohio, as his brother and sisters were all born in Indiana.
* * *
THE JENKINS FAMILY TREE
Father: Amasa Jenkins (1844–1938)—Parents Robert Jenkins and Ann Pearson-Jenkins
Mother: Mary Ann Thomas (1843–1916)—Parents Luke Thomas and Mildred Fulghum-Thomas
Married: June 16, 1866
Children Born:
C. Francis, August 22, 1867 (1934)
Atwood L., December 14, 1869 (1946)
Olive L., February 14, 1873 (1929)
Alice A., July 21, 1878 (1931)
Alvin, February 12, 1881 (1882)
Alfred "Willie" William, November 23, 1883 (1958)
* * *
Francis's grandfather, Luke Thomas, lived in a log cabin on acreage not far from the Jenkins farm. Francis would later recall the open fireplace hearth and working together with his grandfather. At his grandfather's knee he heard stories of the pioneering days, Daniel Boone, Indian attacks, and lessons from the Bible. Reading and reciting Bible passages was a daily ritual, just prior to breakfast. These lessons in love and appreciation inspired Jenkins. They excited him with the possibilities of learning, travel, and his own future. He wanted to see the West that his grandfather described in the stories.
The Youthful Francis Jenkins
Young Francis was a freckled redhead, "red as a brick," as he said, but with age his hair would become steel grey. His character was humble and unassuming, with a self-assured, driving passion. His eyes were blue, and at five-and-a-half feet tall, he was a short, slender man. "He had a medium square build, and weighed around 175 pounds, with the face of many who spent much of his time out of doors ... [and the] forehead of a thinker." He was full of energy, nervous, and constantly on the move. He was a high-strung adventurer, always modest about his achievements, yet with an ingenious aptitude. Things came easily to him.
One summer day, when Francis was a youngster, his mother dressed him to play in the yard. He must not have been thrilled with the outfit—a short dress and sunbonnet, to keep the fair-skinned boy from getting sunburned. The yard was surrounded by a large board fence, so his mother did not worry about her children—they could not go far, and she could see them from the windows while she worked around the house. On this particular day, when she checked the grounds, little Francis had disappeared. Panic-stricken, Mary began to search for her son—he'd gotten through the fence and out of the yard. He had borrowed a wood saw from the tool shed, cut a hole in the fence, gotten out, and headed for the barn. The evidence of his escape and ingenuity lay beside the fence—he had taken off the sunbonnet, left the saw, and was gone. He was found shortly thereafter, playing with the new suckling pigs.
As Francis grew, so did his contributions to farm work. His earliest inventions facilitated farm operations. He once caught his fingers in the gears of a vibrating bean-sifter screen, and this incident left him with lifelong scars. So he invented a bean husker, which removed the seed of the bean from the outer shell. His father was not too appreciative of the boy's idea, which Francis had built in the attic of the house, because inventing diverted his son's attention from the chores of greasing the wagon axles. To make that greasing job easier, Francis designed a jack that raised the wagons so that the lubricant could be more easily applied. This invention caught the attention of his neighbors. Francis and a younger brother, likely Atwood, made several jacks and sold them in town. In selling the jacks, he learned his first lesson in marketing. The painted jacks sold first, while those not yet painted, but just as workable, were slower to sell. More of his inventiveness complemented farm work. He set up a telephone system to communicate between the barn and the house. It became his responsibility to keep the farm machinery working. "That is thy gift, and to thee it is no great credit," his father commented after Francis had fixed the field mower. Amasa sought not to chastise his son but to teach him that his "gift" was from God.
Francis was always inquisitive, wanting to know how everything worked. Such things as opening a pocket watch with a hatchet and disappearing at the train station, where he was found examining the engine, were youthful explorations that did not always sit well with his parents. His uncle once brought him a small model-train engine he had made, and Francis immediately set out to make one of his own. The farm was a haven for a growing young mind—it set the pattern of "need and inventiveness" in his life, but as Francis grew, the farm could not hold him. He longed to travel West.
Traveling the Western Frontier
Francis graduated high school and attended a year at Earlham College, where he developed an interest in electricity. Then, sometime between 1883 and 1887, he left home for the West Coast. He was most likely about twenty years of age when he boarded the Santa Fe railroad in Chicago for the trek to the Pacific. It was a pivotal point in his life. Had he remained on the farm, he might have made different contributions to society. The record of why Francis left is unclear, but the death of his younger brother Alvin likely influenced his decision. The baby Alvin had died after having been left in Francis' care. It was a crushing blow to Francis, as he seemed to be blamed for his brother's death. Thus, grieving and motivated, he left home in search of his own life.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from C. Francis Jenkins, Pioneer of Film and Television by DONALD G. GODFREY. Copyright © 2014 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Prologue 1
1 Jenkins' Heritage and Youth 3
2 Early Film Experiments 15
3 A Lifetime of Struggle 23
4 Jenkins Motion Pictures 51
5 Founding the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers 69
6 Visionaiy Entrepreneur 77
7 RadioVision: The Genesis and Promotion 95
8 Radio Pictures: Going Operational 107
9 Television: Seeing by Electricity 121
10 The Eyes ofRadio 135
11 The Jenkins Television Corporation 149
12 American Visionary 169
Epilogue 181
Appendix A U.S. Patents Issued to c. Francis Jenkins 185
Appendix B Selected Jenkins Patents Referenced in Modern Patent Applications 193
Notes 195
Bibliography 265
Index 279