Book Review: C. Francis Jenkins, Pioneer of Film and Television, by Donald G. Godfrey

Abstract

C. Francis Jenkins, Pioneer of Film and Television. Donald G. Godfrey. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014. 304 pp. $50.00 hbk. $16.50 ebkMedia historians have not overlooked Charles Francis Jenkins, but neither have they given his story its due. Don Godfrey corrects this imbalance by probing traditional sources and cultivating evidence buried in unusual records -including Jenkins's 283 patents. As a former biographer of television visionary Philo T. Farnsworth, Godfrey is well qualified for this undertaking. With C. Francis Jenkins, Pioneer of Film and Television, Godfrey continues to question original documents to set right the earliest records of media history. The result makes up for omissions in seminal works, such as Erik Barnouw's A History of Broadcasting in the United States, and expands better developed later works, such as Gary Edgerton's The Columbia History of American Television. Godfrey involves the reader in Jenkins's milieu, humanizes the prolific inventor, and recovers details of his pioneering inventions in motion picture technology, RadioVision, and the evolution of mechanical to electronic television. C. Francis Jenkins is a much-needed improvement to existing histories and an indispensible reference for any future treatments of media technology.Anyone who has ever used SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) time code owes a note of thanks to Charles Francis Jenkins, who in 1916 founded the Society of Motion Picture (and as of 1950, Television) Engineers. Godfrey explains, [SMPTE] helped guide film from an awkward novelty into a technology with scientific and entertainment purposes. . . . One major problem among pre-World War I competitors was that each utilized different systems. The answer was standardization. Jenkins favored engineering cooperation (not unlike Edwin H. Armstrong) over the profiteering, patent hoarding of the likes of David Sarnoff. Godfrey chronicles Jenkins's SMPE initiative amid other chapters on early film experiments, motion picture cameras, automobile inventions, radio transmission of photographic images, and as founder of the short-lived Jenkins Television Corporation, on the cusp of the Great Depression.Godfrey accomplishes several goals in this biography of the blue-eyed, redheaded Quaker farm boy, who was born in Dayton, raised in Indiana, and worked as a West Coast laborer before moving to Washington, D.C., in 1890. Jenkins clerked for the U.S. Life-Saving Service and poured himself into inventing. It was Jenkins, Godfrey explains, who pushed for large-screen movie projection, instead of the individualized peepshows of his day. Jenkins reportedly demonstrated his camera-projector, the Phantoscope, in 1894 in Richmond, Virginia. Godfrey recounts how Jenkins projected moving images of Annabelle the Dancing Girl. The sight of the young lady's naked ankle appalled ladies, but the Phantoscope revolutionized the industry by giving film its intermittent, frame-by-frame illusion of motion.Jenkins contended with partnership squabbles typical of the era, notably with Thomas Armat. Godfrey's impressive analysis clarifies the dispute, concluding Jenkins originated the Phantoscope before partnering with Armat, was confused about dates of his demonstrations, and damaged his credibility through careless claims. …