1920's Television

The Earliest Days of Television

In the 1920's new technology was developed that allowed pictures to be sent over the telephone - the equivalent of the modern day fax. It was a logical progression of this to attempt to send moving pictures.

The initial application of this technology was the equivalent of the modern video phone. Even more wonderful than speaking to someone over the telephone was the ability to see the person who was telephoned. This seeing at a distance was called television, or "far-seeing."

In 1927 the president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in New York talked by phone to Herbert Hoover in Washington, more then 200 miles away. The president of the telephone company was able to see clearly the face of Mr Hoover as he talked. This proved to the world that electricity could be used to carry sight as well as sound.

By 1929 the first attempt at aerial television - a live broadcast made from an aeroplane - was being made.

TELEVISION RESOURCES

MZTV Museum of Television
Information on the pioneers of Television including Charles Francis Jenkins and John Logie Baird, a timeline of television history, and television in the world of tomorrow.

The World's earliest Television recordings
View original television recordings from the 1920's and 1930's that have been restored from their original discs by Don McLean, plus information on this pioneering medium.

John Logie Baird - Short Biography
Biography of John Logie Baird, who devoted himself to the invention of television, producing the system first used by the BBC in 1929.

John Logie Baird - Biography and Interviews
This short account, written for the anniversary of the invention of television, not only recounts the events that led up to the first demonstration of television by John Logie Baird in 1926, but also describes some of the Scottish inventor's many areas of investigation.

Charles Francis Jenkins
A collection of excerpts from different sources on the work of Jenkins. While Baird promoted and developed mechanical television in Britain, Charles Francis Jenkins promoted it in North America.