CHARLES FRANCIS JENKINS. Born in Dayton, Ohio, U.S.A, 22 August 1867. Attended Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana. Married: Grace Love, 1902. Independent inventor, demonstrated the first practical motion picture projector, 1894; invented automobile with the engine in front instead of under the seat, 1898; designed an early sight-seeing bus, 1901; created an early automobile self-starter, 1911; developed significant improvements to the internal combustion engine, 1912; developed inventions in radio-photography, television, radio movies, 1915-20s; founded the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, 1916; research vice-president of Jenkins Television Corporation, 1928. Member: National Aeronautical Association, American Automobile Association. Recipient: Franklin Institute and the City of Philadelphia medal. Died in Washington, D.C., U.S.A., 6 June 1934.

PUBLICATIONS (selection)

"Transmitting Pictures by Electricity." Electrical Engineer (New York), July 1894.

"Prismatic Rings." Transactions of the SMPE (New York), 1922.

"Radio Photographs, Radio Movies, and Radio Vision." Transactions of the SMPE (New York), 1923.

"Recent Progress in the Transmission of Motion Pictures by Radio." Transactions of the SMPE (New York), 1924.

Vision by Radio, Radio Photographs, Radio Photograms. Washington, D.C.: Jenkins Laboratories, 1925.

"Radio Vision." Proceedings of the IRE (New York), November 1927.

"The Drum Scanner in Radiomovies Receivers." Proceedings of the IRE (New York), September 1929.

Radiomovies, Radiovision, Television. Washington, D.C.: Jenkins Laboratories, 1929.

"Television Systems." Journal of the SMPE (New York), October 1930.

The Boyhood of an Inventor. Washington, D.C.: Charles Francis Jenkins, 1931.

 

See also Baird, John Logie; Television Technology

 

 

   

Charles Francis Jenkins was a leading inventor and promoter of mechanical scanning television and largely responsible for strong and passionate interest in television in the 1920s and early 1930s in the United States. His work in mechanical television paralleled the work of John Logie Baird in England. Jenkins also provided the first public television demonstration in the U.S. on 13 June 1925, less than three months after a somewhat similar demonstration by Baird in England. Jenkins' demonstration, using mechanical scanning at both the transmitting and receiving ends, consisted of crude silhouette moving images called "shadowgraphs." This early work in mechanical scanning television helped lay the foundation for later all-electronic television.

Jenkins was the archetype of the independent inventor. Without major corporate financial backing, he never received the recognition, success or wealth that otherwise might have come to him. His numerous contributions and inventions covered a broad range of areas and uses. He co-invented and publicly demonstrated the first practical motion picture projector in the United States (1894), developed an automobile with the engine in the front instead of under the seat (1898), designed an early sight-seeing bus (1901), created an early automobile self-starter (1911) and developed significant improvements to the internal combustion engine (1912). He was granted more than 400 U.S. patents for inventions as diverse as an altimeter, airplane brake, conical paper drinking cup, and, even a bean-shelling machine. In the area of communication and media technology he developed the "prismatic Ring" (circa 1915) designed to eliminate the need for film shutters in motion picture projectors by using a glass disk scanning apparatus. He later experimented with a variation of this concept for one of his mechanical television scanning systems. His work in facsimile in the early 1920s led to successful wirephoto transmissions by January of 1922 and radiophotos in May of that year. He was also involved in early wireless teletype transmission.

In 1916 Jenkins helped found the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, later renamed the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), and was elected as the organization's first president. The idea of visual transmission interested Jenkins many years before his first demonstrations of facsimile and television. In the July 1894 issue of Electrical Engineer he proposed a method for electrically transmitting pictures. In the September 1913 issue of Motion Picture News he proposed a mechanism for television.

Jenkins' initial target market for television was radio amateurs and experimenters. He expected this market to quickly grow as a larger public became interested in television. The Federal Radio Commission (FRC) issued the first experimental television station license in America to Jenkins in 1927 and this station, W3XK, began transmitting on 2 July 1928, with regular broadcasts of "radiomovies," television images of motion pictures, from Jenkins' facility near Washington, D.C. In addition, his company provided information and instructions on how to build television receivers. In December 1928 the Jenkins Television Corporation was founded in New Jersey to sell Jenkins television equipment and operate television stations to promote the sale of receivers to the public and equipment for experimenters and other experimental stations. By mid-1929 the Jenkins Television Corporation was marketing receivers, named Radiovisors, to pick up signals from its transmitters in Washington, D.C. and New Jersey. The receivers were designed for easy use by people in their homes. The devices initially utilized a compact spinning-drum scanning mechanism that conserved space, energy and weight. Unfortunately, picture quality was extremely limited making the reception of television little more than a "quickly tiresome novelty." By 1931 the Jenkins Television Corporation was offering both factory-built Radiovisors and do-it-yourself kits. Because of the high cost of Radiovisors during the Depression, the lessening interest in the limited program offerings, mediocre image quality, and the pending introduction of all-electronic television, sales dropped precipitously by the end of the year. To make matters worse, the Federal Radio Commission had disallowed the broadcast of advertisements on the air promoting Jenkins receivers and receiver kits.

In October 1929 De Forest Radio had acquired a majority interest in Jenkins Television. In March 1932, Jenkins Television was liquidated and its assets sold to De Forest Radio. Within months, De Forest Radio went into receivership and sold its assets, including its Jenkins holdings, to RCA which then discontinued the Jenkins television operation due to a notable lack of interest in, and support for, mechanical television. The limitations inherent in mechanical television's picture quality kept it from being able to compete with electronic scanning television systems and it was, therefore, deemed a failure and doomed to quick obsolescence in America. The Jenkins Laboratories in Washington, D.C. continued television research but closed in 1934 with the death of Jenkins.

Perhaps Jenkins was short sighted by concentrating on mechanical television and not moving ahead into electronic television. Perhaps he simply didn't have the financial backing to move in this direction. Today he has been almost lost in history, forgotten by all but a few television historians. Yet in the United States he was responsible for the advent of television and was the first pioneer to make television a reality. He was responsible for creating a great interest in television and its future among experimenters, amateur radio enthusiasts, the public and business. He paved the way for television's future success helping provide the incentive for support of television experimentation by "big business" such as RCA's support of Vladimir K. Zworykin, Crocker and later Philco's support of Philo T. Farnsworth, and G.E.'s support of Ernst F. W. Alexanderson.

-Steve Runyon