Pioneers of Television — Charles Francis Jenkins

This paper is a history of the contributions made to the new art and science of television by Charles Francis Jenkins. It is intended to prove that Jenkins made many advances to the early art of television for which he has not been given proper credit. Jenkins was the only man in history who was present at the birth of both the motion picture and television. Together with Thomas Armat, he devised and built the first practical motion-picture projector in 1895. Early in 1922, he started experiments in facsimile (phototelegraphy), and the following year he gave the first “witnessed” demonstration of a working television system. He continued to perfect his system, and finally acquired some 85 patents in the television field. Jenkins was the founder and first president of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers (SMPE), now the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE).