Zworykin, Pioneer of Television by Albert Abramson

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 789 (LMF) and assigned to a variety of nonflying tasks. Such reassign­ ments were clearly seen as punitive, and the stigma of LMF stamped on one’s personnel file often contributed to a lifetime of guilt and resentment. Using obscure medical records and impressive research techniques, Wells effectively compares the British practice with the American approach, which was more inclined to psychological treat­ ment and rehabilitation. Still, both services experienced roughly the same number of emotional casualties. This is a sensitive, informative study. Jacob Vander Meulen, professor of history at Dalhousie Univer­ sity, has written on the politics of aircraft production and various aspects of labor relations. In this brief but engrossing book, he fo­ cuses on the remarkable story of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. This was one of the first airplane production efforts to effectively employ a style later tagged as “concurrency,” in which construction offacto­ ries and specialized tooling began as the plane progressed through preliminary design and early test phases. By the time the B-29 was cleared for production, an elaborate system of subcontractors and new fabrication facilities was already in place. Vander Meulen also describes the incredibly diverse work force recruited for B-29 pro­ duction lines, employing seamstresses, filling station attendants, cocktail waitresses, farmhands, and others. All had to be trained in esoteric production tasks for hydraulic lines, fuel gauges, electronic gun sights, and huge slabs of aluminum skin—the myriad compo­ nents for one ofthe most sophisticated military machines of the war. Many components were designed so as to be more producible by the masses of unskilled workers on B-29 assembly lines. Enhanced by dozens of rare photos, this is a fascinating study of the interaction of industrial design and human dynamics. Roger E. Bilstein Dr. Bilstein is professor of history at the University of Houston—Clear Lake. He teaches courses on U.S. history, technology, and aerospace. His most recent book is The American Aerospace Industry: From Workshop to GlobalEnterprise (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996). Zworykin, Pioneer ofTelevision. By Albert Abramson. Champaign: Uni­ versity of Illinois Press, 1995. Pp. xviii+319; illustrations, notes, index. $36.95 (cloth). Albert Abramson has written the first book-length biography of Vladimir Kosma Zworykin (1889-1982). Having previously authored Electronic Motion Pictures: A History of the Television Camera (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) and The History of Television, 1880 to 1941 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1987), he is careful to identify Zworykin as a pioneer of television rather than the “father” of the medium, as is frequently done. Abramson affirms two basic 790 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE ideas: that nothing happens in isolation and that there is no single inventor of anything. Similar ideas occur to several people at about the same time. These people are aware of each other. Consequently, they influence and compete with each other. Accordingly, Abram­ son describes the discoveries of the men who made television in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Soviet Union, Hungary, and Japan. (He does not mention the fact that Radio Reuista in Buenos Aires promoted Argentine television from 1929 onward and that, in 1933, Adolfo Elias experimented with tele­ vision transmissions in the provincial city of Rosario. Nothing from “south of the border” seems to have influenced Zworykin.) Abram­ son does carefully explain each improvement in each part of the eventual television broadcast system in which Zworykin did have a role. A secondary theme in this biography is Zworykin’s simply amaz­ ing good luck in a number of dangerous situations as well as at key transition points in his career. Abramson succeeds in debunking my­ thology manufactured by RCA’s public relations men to the effect that their researchers alone made things happen. Abramson shows that Zworykin’s picture tube (“kinescope”) and camera tube (“iconoscope”) were the forerunners ofcontemporary receiver and camera technology. While the author clearly has sympa­ thetic respect for the inventive creativity of Philo Farnsworth, he de­ fends the priority of Zworykin’s picture tube. This book is another solid contribution to the early history of the electronic media repre­ sented by such recent authors as Susan Douglas, Robert McChesney...