C. Francis Jenkins, Pioneer of Film and Television

Chapter 3. A Lifetime of Struggle

3 A lifetime of struggle It is easy to romanticize a man like Charles Francis Jenkins—born into an age of discovery, traveling out West, seeing the creation of inventions that are taken for granted today. He was acquainted with the likes of Alexander Graham Bell in his time. Nevertheless, Jenkins’ life was not without controversy. He was challenged by his competitors and critics. The most significant of these was Thomas J. Armat, who partnered with him for a short period of time and then moved on to create the Armat Moving-Picture Company, making millions and giving Jenkins a lifetime of aggravation. The controversy cannot be ignored, as there are reflections of Jenkins’ life and invention in the conflict. The film historian Charles Musser described the emergence of cinema in the United States as a “history of greed, dishonesty, and ineptitude.”1 This could be said of the industrial battlefields of many early inventors, in motion pictures as well as radio and television. It was a battle not only between competing laboratories and ideas. It was competition to be first—in receiving the credit, in patent rights, in the press, and in earning potentially huge profits. Battles cycled out from the small laboratory conflicts into corporate boardrooms, the media, and the courts. Lawsuits, litigation, and patentinterference charges were all just part of doing business. Film, radio, and television inventors were constantly in contention. Thomas A. Edison was involved in many infringement suits.2 The inventors Guglielmo Marconi, Reginald Fessenden (who once worked for Edison), Lee de Forest, and Philo Farnsworth all had incorporated organizations surrounding their inventions, and all were involved in patent-infringement challenges. Perhaps the most LC 24 . chapter 3 infamous were the De Forest versus Armstrong, Armstrong versus Sarnoff/ RCA, and Farnsworth versus Sarnoff/RCA cases.3 Some sued at the drop of a hat. Lawsuits separated friendships, partnerships, inventors, and corporations . Such was the context in the development of film and television during Jenkins’ lifetime. So it was for the Jenkins and Armat controversy. Armat: opportunity, Friends, and Adversaries Thomas J. Armat (1866–1948) was born on October 26, 1866, in Fredericksburg , Virginia, to a well-to-do family. His father practiced law and operated a lumber mill. Thomas attended private schools and was an accomplished oarsman. He grew up and worked in Washington, D.C. In his teenage years, he clerked at a local hardware store. At the age of eighteen he labored at a railroad machine shop. Later he would become a bookkeeper for the Richmond and Danville railway. In motion-picture history, Armat’s name is inextricably connected first with Jenkins, then with Edison, and later with his own motion-picture company .4 Like Jenkins, Armat’s inventive interests were varied. He enrolled in courses at the Mechanics Institute in Richmond, Virginia, and he was developing a small portfolio of inventions. He created a rowlock for boats and a mechanical coupler for the railway cars. In 1893, he left the railroad for fulltime employment in the family real estate business of Daniel and Armat in Washington, D.C.5 Armat’s interest in photography grew out of attending the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, where he saw Ottomar Anchutz’s “tachyscope” exhibited.6 The tachyscope utilized “photography plates on a wheel,” which were illuminated by light flashing on each plate. It was a peephole device where the audience, one at a time, could see the motion, most often a nature scene, but it was not large-screen projection.7 Armat was initially discouraged from seeking the hopeless possibilities of projection by H. A. Tabb, a family friend. Tabb was an associate of Raff and Gammon, the sales-representative firm in Washington, D.C., for the Edison Kinetoscope.8 Tabb told him that “he did not believe it was possible to project such pictures successfully.” He was aware of the failed work at the Edison Company, which had been promoted by Raff and Gammon.9 This did not dissuade Armat but rather led to his enrollment in the Bliss School of Electricity, believing that perhaps large-screen projection could be accomplished another way. It was at the Bliss School, in the winter of 1894, that he met Jenkins.10 At the time, Armat was working full-time in D.C. real estate, and Jenkins was still at the Treasury a lifetime of struggle · 25 Department. Successful in real estate...