C. Francis Jenkins, Pioneer of Film and Television

ebook The History of Media and Communication

By Donald G. Godfrey

cover image of C. Francis Jenkins, Pioneer of Film and Television

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This is the first biography of the important but long-forgotten American inventor Charles Francis Jenkins (1867-1934). Historian Donald G. Godfrey documents the life of Jenkins from his childhood in Indiana and early life in the West to his work as a prolific inventor whose productivity was cut short by an early death. Jenkins was an inventor who made a difference.

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.

| Title Contents Preface Acknowledgments Prologue Chapter 1. Jenkins' Heritage and Youth Chapter 2. Early Film Experiments Chapter 3. A Lifetime of Struggle Chapter 4. Jenkins' Motion Pictures Chapter 5. Founding the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers Chapter 6. Visionary Entrepreneur Chapter 7. RadioVision: The Genesis and Promotion Chapter 8. Radio Pictures: Going Operational Chapter 9. Television: Seeing by Electricity Chapter 10. The Eyes of Radio Chapter 11. The Jenkins Television Corporation Chapter 12. American Visionary Epilogue Appendix A. U.S. Patents Issued to C. Francis Jenkins Appendix B. Selected Jenkins Patents Referenced in Modern Patent Applications Notes A Selected Research Bibliography Index |

"Almost eighty years following Jenkins' death, the story of his life and many achievements is finally being told."—Robin Vierbuchen Sproul, Vice President and Washington Bureau Chief, ABC News


"With his biography of Francis Jenkins (indeed, the first ever), Don Godfrey again demonstrates his "chops" as a historian willing to do the archival digging necessary to rescue a story worth telling. As in his earlier study of Philo Farnsworth, Godfrey sorts out the sometimes controversial pieces of a career that—for a time—seemed to show the way to widespread use of television. Especially interesting is Jenkins' creative work in both film and television at their very dawning. This is a life well worth reading."—Christopher H. Sterling, author of Stay Tuned: A Concise History of American Broadcasting and Sounds of Change: A History of FM Broadcasting in America
"C. Francis Jenkins, Pioneer of Film and Television makes a substantial contribution to the literature on film and electronic communication. Godfrey's scholarship is exceptional and exhaustive. He left no stone unturned in compiling his resources to write this book."

—Louise M. Benjamin, author of The NBC Advisory Council and Radio Programming, 1926-1945


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Donald G. Godfrey is a broadcast educator, professional broadcaster, and historian. His many works include Philo T. Farnsworth: The Father of Television and the Historical Dictionary of American Radio. Godfrey is a past president of the national Broadcast Education Association (BEA), a former editor of the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, and...

C. Francis Jenkins, Pioneer of Film and Television