C. Francis Jenkins, Pioneer of Film and Television

Chapter 12. American Visionary

12 American visionary Charles Francis Jenkins was an important inventor who created breakthrough turning points in two major industries—film and television. He was always forging across traditional boundaries and looking for new ways to bring things together. He was a versatile inventor and a workaholic who seldom stopped to rest. He never gave up. In film, he sold his controversial Phantoscope projector patent, which led to large-screen movie projection, and he watched motion-picture theaters grow into a billion-dollar industry.1 His diversified interests included the automobile, and “in 1898 he scared the wits out of [congressional] representatives’ horses . . . driving a ‘horseless carriage ,’ [one of] the Capital’s first automobiles.”2 He developed instruments for aviation and almost lost his life in his flying television laboratory.3 He kept the Jenkins Laboratory operational into the early Depression years, indeed, until his health dictated its closure. In television, he bridged mechanical with electronic technology, later experiments related to fiberoptics, and electro-optical receivers. Press reports labeled him a “martyr to science.”4 The Washington Herald described him as “one of the greatest . . . and least-known inventors of our time. . . . He literally gave his life to science.”5 The Washington Post described him “as one of the world’s foremost scientists.”6 By 1927, the New York Times had labeled him as “the man who was keeping America in front ranks in the development of radio vision, or ‘seeing’ by radio.”7 The Christian Science Monitor asked in 1926, “Do you realize that C. Francis Jenkins is the man who not only had the vision, but the daring to attempt to unite the two most popular subjects, radio and motion pictures?”8 His hometown paper, the Richmond LC 170 . chapter 12 Palladium and Sun-Telegram, reflected irony in the fact that his death came “exactly forty years [after] the young inventor showed motion pictures for the first time.”9 He was the only inventor who participated in the birth of both motion-picture photography and television. Jenkins’ youth Jenkins’ agrarian upbringing created within him an independent will, an untiring work ethic, and strong character. The farm proved a haven for an innovative young mind. His aptitude for fixing and inventing things was his “gift from God,” his parents told him, making sure he understood the source of his talents. His character was forged at a young age, and his Quaker heritage influenced him throughout his lifetime. The family believed in a personal God who encouraged hard work and service. Young Jenkins loved nature, the stories read daily from the Bible, and the apocryphal tales told of the Wild West he heard at his grandfather’s knee, which no doubt fostered his love for travel as well as his curiosity. He was a romantic who loved people and life. As to formal education, he had only a high school diploma and one year at college, but his lifetime of innovative output eventually earned him an honorary doctorate. He was continually seeking new and practical inventions. He said, “New thing[s] always originate in a single brain, usually the brain of a poor man. . . . It is not the product of great wealth and a great laboratory. Money only develops, it never originates.”10 This would be an accurate reflection of Jenkins’ work and himself. He would seesaw from rags to riches, back and forth throughout his life. Jenkins the Man Outside of his role as an inventor, what do we know about Jenkins the man? He was described by the Christian Science Monitor as a “happy warrior.” Though he was “worn by almost ceaseless laboratory labor for 34 years, [he] bubble[d] over with the enthusiasm of a boy with a new electric trains.”11 He was a constant explorer and inventor. He reveled in the puzzles of how things worked, not only in the lab but at home. He saw the natural world as filled with wonderful questions—over which he speculated answers. What makes a flag flutter in the breeze? Why do a plant’s leaves pop “up” from the ground? Why, when a log is thrown into a river, is it drawn to the center of the stream? How does a bird glide with the wind?12 He was a naturally inquisitive individual. american Visionary · 171 Jenkins was also a man of deep faith who was devoted to his family. He loved children. He was a...