Charles Francis Jenkins
| Charles Francis Jenkins | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | August 22, 1867 Dayton, Ohio |
| Died | June 6, 1934 (age 66) Washington, D.C. |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Bliss Electrical School |
| Engineering career | |
| Projects | Over 400 patents related to a variety of inventions |
| Significant advance | Motion picture projector and television |
| Awards |
Elliott Cresson Medal (1897) John Scott Medal (1913) |
Charles Francis Jenkins (August 22, 1867 – June 6, 1934) was an American pioneer of early cinema and one of the inventors of television, though he used mechanical rather than electronic technologies. His businesses included Charles Jenkins Laboratories and Jenkins Television Corporation (the corporation being founded in 1928, the year the Laboratories were granted the first commercial television license in the United States). Over 400 patents were issued to Jenkins, many for his inventions related to motion pictures and television .
Jenkins was born in Dayton, Ohio, grew up near Richmond, Indiana, where he went to school, and went to Washington, D.C. in 1890, where he worked as a stenographer.
He started experimenting with movie film in 1891, and eventually quit his job and concentrated fully on the development of his own movie projector, the Phantoscope.
As the Richmond Telegram reported, on June 6, 1894, Jenkins visited Richmond to show his parents, friends and newsmen a gadget he had been working on for two years: a "motion picture projecting box". They gathered at Jenkins' cousin's jewelry store in downtown Richmond and viewed the first film projected in front of an audience. The motion picture was of a vaudeville dancer doing a butterfly dance, which Jenkins had filmed himself in the backyard of his Washington boarding house. Not only was this the first showing of a reeled film with electric light before an audience, but it was also the first motion picture with color. Each frame was painstakingly colored by hand.
At the Bliss Electrical School, in Washington, D.C., he met his classmate Thomas Armat, and together they improved the design. They did a public screening at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta in 1895 and subsequently broke up quarreling over patent issues. This modified Phantoscope of Jenkins and Armat was patented July 20, 1897. Jenkins eventually sold his interest in the projector to Armat. Armat subsequently sold the rights to Thomas Edison, who marketed the projector under the name Vitascope. It was with this projector that Edison began public showings in vaudeville theaters of filmed motion pictures, with paid admission.
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